FREMONT, Neb (KMTV) — On March 14th, 2019 water began to slowly creep into Fremont and surrounding Dodge County.
First the flooding hit Ridgeland road, then it was Emerson estates.
The levies around the town continued to break and before long the entire city of Fremont was cut off.
“From there the next thing you know it was nearly every community needed assistance,” said Dodge County Emergency Management Director Thomas Smith.
Thomas Smith says he still thinks about those chaotic first few hours of the flood.
With the entire state dealing with extreme weather, resources to help Fremont were limited.
Getting supplies in and out on the roads was out of the question…but it was a different story at Fremont’s airport.
“It was amazing. No one asked people to help, they just did it,” said Jim Kjelgaard with Fremont Aviation.
Over the next few days the runways at the airport were buzzing, constantly full of dozens of planes shuttling people and supplies in and out of Fremont.
“It was almost chaos. There was lots of airplanes, people volunteering to help to do everything they could,” said Kjelgaard.
Over the next few days the waters around Fremont began to recede, leaving buckled roads and ruined homes.
But it wouldn’t take long for the community to start putting the pieces back together.
“The process of rebuilding as a community is incredibly challenging but it’s been made easier because we have so many partners who come together,” said Christy Fiala, Executive Director for Fremont Area United Way.
Fiala says that even five years later the scars left from the 2019 floods can still be seen.
Her organization is still assisting families who lost everything, and the fear that it might happen again is still very much alive for many Fremonters who brave the floods.
“It’s always on your mind. Every year when it freezes up the river, you think well it could happen. You just watch it and hope it don’t,” said Kjelgaard.
Fremont and Dodge County aren’t just waiting around for the next disaster.
In the years since the County has organized hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of projects to help keep the waters at bay if another flood should come.
“We are trying to make it better. We are doing 7 different mitigation projects across the county. Large projects that are gonna hopefully reduce our risk of flooding in the future,” said Smith.
