Residents say Peru is not protected by levee

PERU – About a thousand acres are underwater near Peru, Neb., after a rising Missouri River found its way onto lowland despite the R 562 agriculture levee.

AJ Regier of Oklahoma is visiting friends in Peru and walked along the now flooded Steamboat Trace Trail and Dock Road.

Regier: “I haven’t seen the Missouri for a long time, so I actually went to Brownville and watched it go across there. But then I came here and I’m like this river is on the doorstep of Peru.”

Nemaha County Emergency Management Director Renee Critser said the levee had not been “100 percent” repaired following the 2019 flood disaster. She said there were low spots that allowed water into the protected side of the levee.

Flood waters have reached the north end of the City of Peru, but all the most flood-vulnerable residences in that area were moved out following the 2019 flood.

 

 

Jerry Patterson, whose five-generation house was condemned after the 2019 flood, described the current flooding.

Patterson: “This is a very slow flood because our levy washed out. Instead of having a broken levee where you just have a gush of water, the water just rose slowly.”

The city is now getting its drinking water from Auburn, so the flood is not a threat to the drinking water as it was in 2019.

Patterson and resident Jackie Whisler said they understand that much of 7.8-mile Levee R 562 was repaired after a U.S. House action to allow the use of federal funds on inactive levees. The $40 million project benefited from a $5 million allocation from the state.

However, they said the levee was not repaired on its  lowest end which is east of Peru.

Patterson: “The levee broke in 2019 and they haven’t repaired it.”

 

 

Whisler: "They did not fix a couple of the holes that were in the levee from 2019 and so this is what happens."

The agricultural levee connects from the right bank of Camp Creek with the main levee about 1.2 miles east of Peru.

In 2019, there were eight breaches of the levee near the Peru Bottoms Wildlife Management Area.

The House passed the Water Resources Development Act of 2020, HR 7575. It included language supported by Congressman Adrian Smith to allow federal disaster funds to be used for inactive levees. Rep. Smith helped introduce the Lower Missouri Flood Prevention Program Act. 

State Sen. Julie Slama said the provisions help the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to address levee flaws.