Restoration
and recuperation
October
snowstorm
By Ted Taylor
Senior Editor
High above the scene in a military
helicopter, Lt. Gov. Kim Robak sur
veyed the damage.
“It looked like a giant foot came
down and hit the community.'’ she said
on Oct. 27. 1997.
The giant foot belonged to Mother
Nature, and Robak’s description best
summed up the destruction 13 inches
of snow caused eastern Nebraska a day
earlier.
Normally a foot of snow in
Nebraska isn't worth getting upset
about - even if it happens to fall in
October.
But this snowstorm wasn't normal.
It hit -t te that had seen one of its
warme:. ml; wasons on record, which
helped most of the larger trees in the
city ’ am their leaves.
iiu when the heavy, wet snow fell
quickly upon those trees, something
had to give.
All told, more than 5.000 trees -
some of them more than 100 years old
- gave, wreaking havoc on power
lines, phone lines, cable lines and the
lives of thousands of Lincolnites.
Since the storm, 4,900 trees that
once lined the streets of Lincoln have
been removed, while another 900 in
city parks and on city trails also were
removed.
“I remember the sheer destruc
tion,” Robak told the Daily Nebraskan
last month, “and the war-zone look
that Lincoln, Omaha and the smaller
communities had.”
Robak, who was the acting gover
nor while Gov. Ben Nelson was on a
trade mission in Asia, was without
electricity herself for the entire week.
In the immediate aftermath of the
_ Matt Miller/DN
A LINCOLN RESIDENT clears his way under branches burdened with snow. More than 5,000 city trees were damaged in the storm.
storm, more than 30,000 of the
105,000 homes in Lincoln were with
out power.
Many of the city’s phone lines
were cut, and many of the city roads
were impassable because of the fallen
trees and power lines, making repair of
the lines more difficult.
The tree damage done to the power
lines had Lincoln Electric System
crews and private contractors from
across the nation working feverishly
day and night.
And each day a few more people
were able to turn on lights, but it was
n’t until Nov. 4 - more than a week
after the snowfall - that the entire city
of Lincoln was able to wake up with
electricity.
The damage total in Lincoln hit
$ 11 million, but federal disaster funds
are expected to pay about $7 million of
that.
The storm cost LES about $4.2
million, but Federal Emergency
Management Agency funding should
pay 75 percent of that, said LES
spokesman Russ Reno.
Meanwhile on the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln campus.
Landscape Services fought a losing
battle working overnight hoping to get
campus ready for classes the next day.
Administrators were quick to
assess the damage and canceled class
es for two days while students, faculty
i-—
Daniel Luedert/DN
MORE THAN 13 inches of snow blanketed Lincoln in the October blizzard. Crews worked around the clock to plow
streets and move fallen tree limbs.
ii
The emergency response activated
immediately. It brought everyone
together and started people working on
one solution to the problem
Mike Johanns
mayor
members and staff dug out from their
own homes.
“That was a tough call, and who
knows whether we made the right call
or not,” Chancellor James Moeser said
on canceling classes. “We’d probably
make the same call again given the
information we had.”
While some appreciated two days
off, for others it wasn’t enough.
Some students found themselves
without power for part or all of the
week, quickly making finding heat
and shelter a top priority.
In fact, four sororities along 1h'h
Street between S and R streets were
w ithout electricity for six dav s.
Abby Rogers, a sophomore biolo
gy major and member of Alpha
Omicron Pi Sororitv. slept on two
beds, a floor and a couch, wniic crew s
worked to get the house .* power aim
heal turned on.
"The nrsi night we thouc? i i w
pretty tun.” she said, "hut the.". r..:iir.
set in.
While people's patience took a
biow. the campus' appearance suffered
a massive hit during the storm.
Roughly 3,000 of its 9.500 trees
were damaged by the storm.
More than 1.000 of those trees
were damaged so badly they had to be
removed, said Landscape Services
Director Ellyn Meyers.
The remaining 2.000 damaged
trees required minor to major pruning,
she said.
“We’re still cleaning up if you can
believe that.” said Meyers, who came
to UNL in February.
She said the costs of replacing and
repairing the trees, along with the
overtime hours crew members racked
up in the days follow ing the storm,
totaled more than $200,000.
Mayor Mike Johanns said after the
storm the city acted quickly and effec
tively in its efforts to restore some sort
of normalcy.
“The emergency response activat
ed immediately,” he said. “It brought
evervone together and started people
working on one solution to the prob
lem
"That really saved us."
And ev en now. as he trav els across
;hc state on his gubernatorial cam
paign trail, he Is reminded of the snow
storm.
"People always ask me hew
Linden's diving." he said. "It's still
.' me 'in ana hie rest -m the towns
h 11 bt lie > > cto b e r s n o vv sun m a re
reeov erinu slowF but sureiv.
It wall take main vears to replace
all the trees and limbs that were
destroyed on Oct. 26.
Gov. Nelson said it will be some
time before the scars are gone.
"This summer we will especially
notice the trees that were lost trees
that were older than most of our popu
lation." he said. “But trees can be
replaced lives cannot.
“Let's hope this doesn't happen
again in our lifetime.”