WINSLOW — Leaders in this flood-devastated village are discovering that relocating a town is much more difficult and time-consuming than they envisioned.

Some residents who opposed the move now think it’s never going to happen.

In 2019, the nearby Elkhorn River topped its banks, pouring up to 5 feet of floodwaters across the community, which lies 16 miles north of Fremont.

So many homes in the town of then-140 residents were inundated, and flooding had become so commonplace, that federal officials offered homeowners a buyout for their property, and town leaders voted to pursue moving the town to higher ground.

Nearly two dozen homes have been burned to the ground since, and patches of dirt mark where some houses that were bought out used to stand.

But plans to rebuild the town on higher ground, adjacent to Logan View High School along U.S. Highway 77, have stalled, and some community leaders figure that five years after the flood, the move is never going to happen.

“People have moved on,” said Rick Addink, a local mechanic and member of the Winslow Village Board.

Most people who took the buyout, say Addik and other detractors of the relocation, have found new homes in nearby Hooper or Fremont. They estimate that fewer than 10 are still interested in what they project will be an expensive endeavor to build a new home amid escalating construction costs and establish a new town on what is now a cornfield.

But others who supported the move still hold out hope.

Zach Klein, Winslow’s fire chief and a member of the town board, said those interested in relocating are moving cautiously, in an effort not to miss anything in what has been roughly estimated to cost $15 million to $16 million to buy a new town site and build roads, sewers and water lines.

But a town “relocation committee” — the group planning the relocation — hasn’t met in months, and while an application is pending for federal funds to finance a new sewer system, efforts remain to find grants to build streets and a water system.

“I personally would love it to go through. But keeping enough momentum is difficult,”  Klein said.

“We’re being very diligent,” he added. “The next couple of steps are huge.”

‘Bomb Cyclone’ Struck

About 13 to 15 homes remain in Winslow, along with a shuttered bar, co-op and hair salon on its deserted Main Street. The post office is gone, and the community hall where the village office used to be located is closed, awaiting up to $100,000 in repairs.

The 2019 “bomb cyclone” flood — which washed out a dam in north-central Nebraska and caused more than $1 billion in damages statewide — was one in a series of floods that have struck Winslow, which sits in a broad floodplain along U.S. Highway 77 just south of the Elkhorn River.

Since then, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has spent $2.25 million to buy out about 30 properties, according to Erv Portis, the state’s assistant director of emergency management. The buyouts covered about 75% of the properties’ pre-flood value, and once taken, that means the property becomes permanent green space.

But Portis said Winslow is now on its own and must seek additional government grants if it hopes to construct a new town where a cornfield now sits.

“They need to build consensus on what they want to do, is the first thing. But then do they have the funding to build the roads, the water system and the wastewater system?” he asked.

‘’You don’t simply relocate a city,” Portis said.

Residents Divided

Whether to move the town continues to divide local residents.

This spring, an effort to recall the three village board members who supported relocation fell a handful of votes short amid controversy over whether votes of displaced residents, who were by then living elsewhere, would count (they did).

Retired mechanic Don Heinke, a village board member who has stayed and who opposes the move, said the buyout FEMA offered him fell far short of what it would cost to obtain a new home. And it didn’t cover replacing his large machine shop, a cavernous, heated structure large enough to hold a handful of vehicles with benches fitted with dozens of tools.

“Little towns are dying all over the state, and they want to do this?” Heinke said.

“They ought to name that new place up on the hill ‘Kleinville,’” he said, in a dig at fellow town board member Zach Klein, a leading advocate for the move.

A couple blocks away, Scott Shipman stands on his back porch, looking over two nearby dirt patches marking where abandoned homes were burned and buried recently.

A 55-year-old disabled former elevator repairman, Shipman said that his home along Highway 77 is paid off and that finding a similar residence for himself and his 86-year-old mother would be impossible on their fixed incomes, even with a FEMA buyout.

So they’re staying, thanks to some government help to replace appliances flooded in their basement.

‘“I just worry about the next one,” he said. “It will flood again.”

Addink, who repairs mowers in his shop in Winslow after working shifts at a tire repair shop in Hooper, is in a similar situation. His home, where he grew up, is paid off, and FEMA’s buyout didn’t include any funds to replace his shop. Meanwhile, his childhood home is habitable again, though he says there’s still some repair work to do.

“I told them I’d be the last guy standing,” he said.

Worries Over Town Maintenance

Addink hopes the town stays put. He has obtained a pair of floodgates from nearby Scribner that would be used to seal off the dike that protects Winslow from floodwaters. During the 2019 flood, a water bladder that was used as a floodgate across a country road failed, allowing a rush of water to flow into the town.

One of Addink’s main concerns is how the town board, which has always struggled with a shortage of funds for water-line maintenance, mowing and street repair, could maintain a new town, even if it gets the money to relocate.

If the town is relocated and the former Winslow townsite becomes a collection of rural homes, it’s likely that those who remain will have to construct their own septic systems.

That’s an expense Shipman doubted that he and his mother could afford, although Addink said a rural water system would continue to serve the homes that remain.

Klein, meanwhile, said a purchase agreement is in place to buy the land for the new town site, and a donor has pledged to cover any shortages.

Construction crews with the Mennonite Church — who are well known for their disaster relief efforts — remain interested in helping build a new town, he said, and the local United Way has offered its help.

A plat map of the new town has been completed, showing where streets, lots and a couple businesses could build. The map, Klein said, is a big help in applying for grants.

And, he added, there’s interest in the new Winslow from people who were not displaced by the flood and who see it as a good site for a new home.

Overall, Klein said that crunch time is coming to decide whether to get started on the move or to abandon the idea.

“We either have to do something out of this winter into the spring, or it needs to be over,” he said.

Not The First

Winslow wouldn’t be the first Nebraska town to move to escape floodwaters.

Niobrara, which sits at the confluence of the Niobrara and Missouri Rivers, has moved twice to escape rising waters.

Several floods in the 1880s forced the town to move from a steamboat landing on the Missouri to a “bench” of land closer to where the Niobrara joins the larger river.

The second move, in the 1970s, was necessitated by rising groundwater levels caused by the damming of the Missouri by Gavins Point Dam. Ninety percent of townspeople voted in favor of moving in 1971, according to an article in Nebraska History magazine.

The move cost an estimated $14.5 million, according to the article, a cost covered by the federal government.

That amount today, if inflation is taken into account, would be in excess of $80 million.

This story was published by Nebraska Examiner, an editorially independent newsroom providing a hard-hitting, daily flow of news. Read the original article: https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2024/10/22/efforts-to-relocate-eastern-nebr...