Flooding, Fear, Faith and Family
This article was first published in the April 4, 2019 edition of the Western Ag Reporter
By Kerry Hoffschneider
Leah Peterson said she saw her father, Kevin Cooksley, afraid for the first time in her life when the Clear Creek that their farm and ranch are named after turned into a raging river just a few weeks ago, “My father has been ranching here for 40 years and had never seen anything like it.”
The recent flooding that hit Nebraska and other areas of the Midwest has brought fear, loss, pain and the positive attributes of community coming together. The latest estimated losses are more than $1 billion and rising. Cattle numbers impacted by the flooding and blizzard conditions are still being tallied while farmers, ranchers and other citizens living in the more than 100-plus communities impacted by the unprecedented events are just trying to get their bearings and figure out what the next second holds, let alone the next day.
Amid all those numbers, are the individual human stories. Leah Peterson, her husband Matt, and their daughters – Maggie, Lucy and Savanah, live in Custer County, the second largest cattle producing county in Nebraska. They are a fifth-generation, commercial cow/calf operation and raise Herefords and Shorthorns as well as corn and alfalfa near the community of Weissert.
Leah and Matt ranch with Leah’s parents, Kevin and Shannon, and her brother, Casey. They were on the edge of flooding and were in that unique position of a combination of blizzard conditions and heavy rains. In Custer County, the damages are like other areas that vary in degrees of severity. From livestock and property losses, to completely-damaged and wiped-out roads, bridges and fences, there are thousands of unique scenarios, each with their own message of pain, heartache and hope.
Clear Creek originates Northwest of Broken Bow and runs through the Cooksley ranch. Peterson said it is typically three-foot-wide and one-foot-deep. During the historic flooding, it grew to a half-mile wide and 20-to-40-foot deep in some places, “We were just getting into the swing of the beginning of calving season. We calve about 450 head of cows and heifers. That morning, we had been paying close attention to the weather forecast. We knew we were going to have to move the cow herd for the big blizzard coming up to a large shelterbelt. It’s not where we typically calve, but we had done that before in other weather conditions.”
“My husband had to leave for a meeting with farmers that day,” she went on. “It started to rain, and I took my daughter to my folks’ house so we could start moving cattle. We had to cross Clear Creek to get to there and I stopped on the bridge because I was surprised at how high the water had come up and I sent a picture of the water level to my husband.”
“The rain turned from drizzle to steady rainfall,” she went on. “Then, mid-to-late morning, we decided to move the cow herd. It was raining strongly by then and the snow was melting under the rain. As we were pushing the cows, I noticed small streams everywhere running downhill on the frozen ground underneath. As we got most of the way there, the water was really picking up and I started feeling uneasy. The cattle turned the corner to push through the last gate and I saw them go into the stream and the water was almost up to their bellies. I froze. I had never seen water that deep there before.”
“We finished pushing them where we were going and my dad said, ‘We can’t stay here.’ We could hear Clear Creek starting to get angry and it kept raining and raining. So, we pushed the cows back where we started coming from and started thinking about Plan B, Plan C and Plan D. One plan after another failed because there was water everywhere by then. We took a short break and dad said, ‘I have one more idea. We are going to try to push the cows down the road across the bridge to one last place.’”
“The eye of the storm passed over us and it was nice for a few minutes,” Peterson recalled. “It was the most ominous feeling. By the minute, the water was coming up and we tried to push cows across the bridge, suddenly everything was under washing water. My brother even tried to cross it to get to us and then turned back because he was afraid to kill his motor.”
Peterson said most of the cows were exhausted and in shock, “Then I saw one disappear underwater and get sucked under the bridge. At this time, we all said, ‘Somebody or something is going to get killed.’ By the grace of the God, the cow popped up and started swimming around to the pasture. Everything had become a raging river by then. We got to the calving pasture and strung up electric fence to hold them there. The only way back there was by tractor because it was four-feet deep.”
Then Peterson said the wind started picking up, followed by sleet, thunder and lightning – the blizzard had arrived and so had darkness. It was time to get home to the children, “Usually it is a one-mile trip from headquarters to my house. Thankfully the kids had made it home safely from school, but my one-mile trip was now 17 miles instead on the only road that was open out of three that typically are. We are only a quarter mile from the creek, so I was concerned how close to the house the water was. The phone lines were out so I could not call the kids at home and my husband and I had both cell phones. My mom was luckily able to send them an email. When I got home, the water had come up to the mailbox but no further, thankfully. We said our prayers and recognized there was not a darn thing we could do for our cows until the blizzard died down.”
“At 10 a.m. the next morning, we ploughed out with a tractor and still could not get to the big cow herd until that night, just before dark,” she said. “The cattle amazingly did not drift like they sometimes do in the wind. They stayed where they were, some were literally almost buried, but they stayed. Then the wind went down that night and things started to improve.”
Eventually the snow drifts melted too, and the family found their victims, the calves that had been born during the storm, “They were the victims of mother nature. The weather phenomenon had brought on labor. Two weeks since then, the stress has taken its toll too. The cattle continue to be tired and stressed and some are choosing to not be good mothers. Just like humans, all of this takes its toll.”
“We were really spared the worst of losses, when you compare to people further east, who had cattle swept away from them. I have found dead calves that are not ours and have started reaching out to people, to figure out whose they are. They need proof of the losses for the indemnity program and we want to help in any way we can,” she said.
Peterson said this is going to impact beef prices and more, “I think this will be felt at the grocery store. The price of ethanol and beef will go up and taxes will probably go up in Nebraska. A local auctioneer had to cut guys off at the sale barn because there were so many that were trying to sell cows that lost their calves. Later down the road, those cows will not exist either and neither will their calves. This will all impact the market. In Nebraska, the ripple effect will continue. There will be neighbors here and across Nebraska who choose to go out of business or are forced to go out of business because they cannot recover. Generational family businesses will be gone. That’s painful to see.”
Right now, everyone is taking life second by second. Peterson and her family will continue to head out the last entrance to their farm that is open, “And, it is not a great entrance, but we have it. The gravel is gone, and the road beds are gone – it’s literally rebuilding all the way up in so many ways and it is going to take a lot of manpower and money. Some of the concerns have just begun – ‘How do I get my corn planter into the field? How do I get my cattle moved? How do I get all the fence fixed?’ There’s plenty of cleanup for everyone. We have cottonwood trees laying out in the alfalfa fields next to the creek. It’s something.”
But, she’s thankful, “My folks raised us kids that it does not matter if you want to farm and ranch for the family, you are going to work for someone else and see some of the world. So, my sister, brother and I went to the University of Nebraska – Lincoln and we gained experiences, but we all chose to come back to the ranching business. You gain strength from all these experiences. The bonds of family and community, all of that helps us get through the hardest of times along with our faith in God, our resilient hope, and the work ethic to make it through.”
“Seeing the sense of community coming back and getting to know your neighbors again, that’s good to see, because that is how it is supposed to be. I hope we keep that spirit and I hope it spreads to the people who have been here to help us. It’s my hope that ‘Nebraska Strong’ is here to stay,” she went on.
While the sense of faith and community remains unchanged, what has changed for Peterson is the memory of seeing that first-time fear in her father’s eyes and feeling that fear herself, “Until you see a flood like that, you do not understand. The water does what it wants to do and all of us are incapable of controlling it. We were no match for any of it.”
Follow Leah Peterson on her blog at: Facebook “ClearCreekRanchMom”