News
Flooding creates problems but brings good will
A lot of northwest Missouri farmers had to scramble to get livestock,
grain and hay out of way of rising water. Atchison County farmer Richard Oswald
was among those surprised by the rapid increase in flows following a dam
failure in Nebraska.
“I think Monday morning nobody in my area really suspected anything like this
was going to happen,” Oswald told Brownfield Ag News, “the first reaction is
disbelief ‘that can’t be right, the river’s going to go from 30 feet to 48 feet
in a couple of days, that can’t be right; that’s just not right,’ but it became
apparent that it was right.”
The additional challenge is the difficulty in moving what had to be taken to
higher ground.
“The problem that we had was our roads were in such awful shape from such a
hard and long winter that some roads just weren’t passable to trucks,” said Oswald,
“and that’s what my situation was, I had 20,000 bushels trapped at my farm and
I really didn’t have any hope to get that out any other way than to grain cart
it two miles to the highway.”
Even though floods bring the worst in natural disasters, they bring out the
best in people, according to Oswald. He had to evacuate his own place and joined
others who were helping his daughter and son-in-law move livestock out of the path
of the rising Missouri River.
“There were ten trailers that neighbors had brought in to help them move and we
were able to get that 80 head of cows and calves in about two-and-a-half hours
and that was really neat to have all that help and have neighbors come in and
do that,” said Oswald. “And then they pitched in and moved all their hay for
them too, so they saved their hay supply as well.”
Oswald is quick to admit he hates floods – the struggle to prepare and the
clean-up afterward – and because of his location, he’s lived through a lot of
them, but his heart is warmed by the good will of the community.
“I can’t tell you the number of people that came out just to check and see if there
was anything they can do,” said Oswald. “The owner of the local auto parts
store brought us food and gasoline for transfer pumps. I mean guys just drive
up in a pick-up and bale out and start grabbing things and loading them on
trucks for you. It’s amazing.”
The cows – many with new calves – were threatened by a levy failure nearby. Oswald
says even the upcoming planting season is in question for many of farmers in
that area.
“I think it’s going to be a month before this water’s all gone,” said Oswald. “Even
once the river drops it’s going to take a good long time for that water to
drain out of the fields and then pick-up and clean-up will start, and I don’t
think there’s going to be much time to get a crop in, but we’ll see.”
Add Comment