Nebraska Flood Shows Weak Points

摘要

Officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Nebraska Dept. of Natural Resources, the state's biggest public power utility and local fire departments were all overwhelmed by a combination of frozen ground, rain and snow in mid-March. The Platte and Missouri river systems could not drain the inundation, and it didn't help that much of the infrastructure in place wasn't ready for such a combined storm and cold event. "The snow amount and the rainfall totals were not uncommon; what was uncommon for us was that one happened on top of the other," says Tim Gokie, dam safety chief for the Nebraska Dept. of Natural Resources (NDNR), the state agency in charge of inspecting the state's 2,924 dams.