Rains close roads, causing water-weary issues in area

    Heavy rainfall Thursday and Friday caused flooding and road closings in nearby Dundy County.
    Road closures north of Benkelman, in the village of Stratton and a part of the Max-Wauneta Road have occurred.
    The Nebraska Department of Transportation officially closed Highway 61 at 3:50 a.m. Friday and it remains closed to through traffic from Enders south to Benkelman.
    On Tuesday, NDOT officials notified Dundy County they would begin pumping the standing water from a section of the highway, Sheriff Clint Smith said.
    Highway 34 through Stratton was also closed due to overflow from the Muddy Creek and Republican River southwest of the village. The road was reopened later Friday.
    A section of the railroad tracks south of town was found collapsed when the water receded and has since been repaired, Smith said.
    The Max-Wauneta Road had a bridge collapse due to flooding and is closed, Smith said.
    On Friday at 2:43 a.m., Dundy County Dispatch received a 911 call from a person whose Ford F-250 pickup was stalled and partially submerged in water on Highway 61 at County Road 719, about 7 miles south of the Chase/Dundy line, Sheriff Smith said.
    Sheriff’s deputy Alex Lucci arrived shortly after and found the vehicle in the road stalled in about four feet of water, with a continuing heavy downpour, Smith said.
    Lucci drove his vehicle up to the stalled Ford and through his public address system urged the vehicle occupant to exit his vehicle and climb on the front push bumper.
    Lucci then backed his own vehicle out of the standing water. The vehicle occupant, identified as Marcus Cramer, was traveling through the area from Texas, and was taken to the Dundy County Hospital for observation and later released, Smith said.
    Then about 5:30 a.m. Friday, when many people were getting up for the day, numerous 911 calls came into the Hitchcock County Dispatch from Stratton citizens on flooded home problems, Smith said.
    Their call system was temporarily overwhelmed so those 911 calls came to the Dundy County system, he said.
    “Our calls to service situation was stabilized by then so Deputy Lucci and I, along with the Nebraska State Patrol, assisted with the problems in Stratton,” he said.
    Thursday night into Friday the National Weather Service measured 10 inches of rain in the Dundy County area, Sheriff Smith said.
Ag issues, too
    Brad Markee with Markee Ag Services in Imperial had fertilized a Dundy County field for Adam Jesse last Thursday. The rain overnight washed that fertilizer away and left the property, as well as a Dundy County maintainer, underwater.
Two Markee Ag Services tanks on a trailer were left parked overnight and got caught in impromptu lake. An empty tank floated, but remained attached by a hose to the trailer and another partially filled tank. On Friday, Markee and employee Eldon Kuntzelman paddled out to turn a valve and ensure the product stayed safely in the filled tank.
Markee was glad he could protect the Jesse’s property, both financially and physically, but said the amount of nutrients saved by unhooking the tanks is minuscule compared to the amount lost from neighboring fields due to the runoff from the heavy rains.