One month after flood, North Bend still has work to do following cleanup

A month ago, the small town of North Bend, which is just west of Fremont was underwater.

“Within two hours, the entire town was covered,” City Council member Ken Streff said.  “Probably less than that, most of the streets were probably three to four feet deep.”

Streff said the water did not spare his home.

“It wasn’t easy walking into my basement and seeing 21 inches of sewer water.”

Streff said his home was just one of more than 400 buildings that took damage.  He said at least a dozen of them are total losses and some people are still not living in their homes.

But Streff said the town has made progress on cleanup, hauling out more than 450 tons of debris and garbage.  He said they still need to repair roads and take bids on a new levee.

However, a big concern for North Bend is farm land.

“Some of the fields have feet of silt on them and so there’s no farming on any of them in the near future,” Streff said.

An FFA advisor said much of the land may not be farmable for more than a year and that other parts might never be usable again.

One business has been able to keep churning through it all.

The North Bend Eagle said more than a foot of water was in their store.

Steve Arneal’s son Nathan owns the newspaper.

“Once they saw the water coming, Nathan grabbed all the computers and put them in his car…and they brought them up here right away,” Steve said.

Nathan set up shop at his parents’ house and the weekly newspaper has continued pumping more than 1,000 copies per week.

Streff said they don’t have an estimate for how much flood damage North Bend took, just that it will cost millions of dollars.