Hospital, Rescue, Bridges Highlight NC's Decade of the 21st Century Teens

NEBRASKA CITY – A look back at the decade of the teens in Nebraska City includes a new hospital, modernized rescue service, transportation overhaul and surge in business.

CHI Health St. Mary’s opened its new hospital in October of 2014. Administrator
Dr. Dan DeFreece said the building is nice, but it’s the staff that is making a difference for the community.

DeFreece: “Certainly it’s been a boon to our ability to provide care. First of all, we have our physician providers on campus, you know, with the rest of the staff, which allows us to be more efficient, be able to respond to issues more quickly.”

 

He said the hospital continues to provide the broad spectrum of services needed for rural health care, but being a part of the CHI Health system allows them to be more “big city” like.

DeFreece: “I think it’s been an adjustment for the community. I think they really like the new facility. Changes in medical staff have created some different challenges for us to get used to using more mid-levels, or APCs as we call them, PA or nurse practitioners, but yet that allows us to expand our access and expand the things we have done here. I think it’s been a little bit different for people, but overall better.”

He said changes in health care could be discussed in weeks, rather than decades, but technology has changed medicine dramatically.

DeFreece: “Medicine largely is the same at the bed side. You’re still taking care of patients, you’ve still got one-on-one interaction. It’s the other stuff around that is so much different, namely the technology, computers and the staff that we use.”

Nebraska City health care has also seen the modernization of the rescue service, which was added to make the new Nebraska City Fire and Rescue.

 

Paramedic Manager Andrew Snodgrass said call volume has grown even as the service transitioned from volunteers to full-time, paid paramedics.

Snodgrass: “We do have a large call volume. This current year being the highest ever. We average about 700 to 800 911 calls per year in our area that we cover and then we do about 400 or 500 interfacility transfers.”

He said the AppleJack Festival and tourism season typically increase the call volume.

Snodgrass: “That large population shift with that many visitors that come into town, there’s just more change of people needing our services and we have had some of our busiest days ever on those festival days.”

An important factor in Nebraska City’s tourism and retail economy is its road system, which has seen a surge in construction over the last half of the past decade.

City Administrator Grayson Path said the city’s connections to Interstate 29 and Interstate 80 on Highway 2 and connection to Omaha on Highway 75 continue to be community selling points.

However, construction has impacted the Highway 2 interchange, the commercial district on 11^th Street and the closing of the Fourth Corso viaduct four years ago meant about 5,000 vehicles per day had to find another route.

Path: “Thankfully, it didn’t grind to a halt. We have enough redundancy in other places to get around. But having lots of orange cones out does provide some anxiety and some restriction and also, from an economic development standpoint but also from life safety and also from commuter traffic, people trying to get to work or school or to the store.”

The city’s share of the $27 million Highway 2 interchange was around $3 million. Then the city learned a new Fourth Corso bridge was expected to cost the city another $8 million.

Path: “The more important story for us locally is we were looking at close to $8 million out of our own pocket, but through the federal funds, through the state funds, through the work we did working with these entities, we were able to get that down to maybe $1 million locally funded, so $8 million total. $1 million us, $7 million them. That was a great story for our community.”

 

Path: “We’ve done a lot to  help improve our infrastructure, I mean the run of the whole gamut. Of course the south interchange, south 11^th Street project, we had the 11^th Street re-alignment project a few years back, we had north 11^th Street project, the Steinhart Trail project, Fourth Corso viaduct, we had Kearney Hill Road, Sixth Street, Seventh Street CDGB projects. We did repairs to First Street bridge, 10^th Street bridge and 16^th Street bridge repairs. We did an overlay on the Steinhart Road bridge to extend the life of that bridge. There’s a lot of concrete being poured and asphalt being laid."

Marty Stovall said improvements to the south interchange has left the city with areas for growth, including a new Holiday Inn Express.

Amy Allgood of Nebraska City Tourism and Commerce said it’s a been a positive decade overall.

 Allgood: “We continue to grow, our membership continues to grow. I worked here in 2010 and we’re up well over 100 members since then. So, things may look different, but still growing and still positive.”

Allgood it was rough having road construction, but now the city has the benefit of safe and easily-traveled roads.