Been quite crazy in my home state of Nebraska the last several days.  Had real bad flooding over most of the state for the last five to six days because of all the melting snow and ice.  Since it had been one of the coldest winters in over thirty years, the soil was still frozen and all the melting ice and snow didn’t sink into the ground like it usually does.  So most rivers, creeks, lakes, etc were overflowing and spilling over.  Many smaller villages and towns, especially those close to rivers and lakes, have been evacuated.  Even bigger towns on the Platte and Missouri rivers had forced evacuations, namely Fremont, Norfolk, Columbus, etc.  The Air Force base at Omaha evacuated all their aircraft before all the runways were flooded.  Omaha, being on the Missouri, has bad flooding in some neighborhoods and bad ice jams on the river.  A nuclear power plant an hour drive south of Omaha was shut down for a while as a precaution.  I think it’s up and running again.  Dozens of bridges, levees, dams have broke and washed out.  Road damage is wide spread over the entire state, namely the eastern half.  Some ranchers lost their entire herds of cattle and pigs due to the floods in the east and the last blizzard in the western half of the state.  For a couple days, the main superhighway in our state, east and west bound Interstate 80, was closed from the city of Grand Island to the Wyoming border.  Many villages and towns have to boil their drinking water as a precaution now.  Many places lost power.  And several of the Native American reservations in the far north east part of the state were hit real bad.  Seems like most of the state is either soaked or just starting to dry out.

Fortunately my hometown avoided most of it, at least from what I can tell.  I haven’t left my house in the last three days.  Just decided to stay off the roads and out of the way.  We never lost power or water.  But I have just been staying near home and off the roads as a precaution.

Of course it has been stressful for me the last few days.  I have a few friends in Omaha and still some family in my childhood hometown.  As my parents now live in Oklahoma, I let them know right away I was alright.  Been sleeping more the last few days.  Managed to diffuse a couple potential breakdowns.  Been a little more irritable and short tempered than I would prefer.  I am hoping this mess dries out soon though the near term forecast doesn’t sound very hopeful as we’re supposed to get more rain over the next few days but it’s supposed to be more early spring like.  It does get old just staying home and playing the waiting game.  But not much else I can do right now.