Area farmers deal with major flooding damage to their fields

Floods came and ruined their fields just after the Curtis family began to plant for the season, adding just that much more work this farming season.

“Well, a lot more work lot less sleep, and a little more stress,” Jesse Curtis a farmer from Seward.

The Curtis’s are not alone, brand new stats are out and they show corn planting in Nebraska is at 81% last year at this time it was 95%.

For soybeans this year 56% has been planted, and that is well behind last year’s 84%.

Even though the flooding right now looks like a major problem, it’s still not the worst the Curtis’s have seen just this year.

“This is a pretty good size flood too it’s not as big as that march was the biggest flood I’ve seen on this place but this is, this is a major flood for us. We get a little minor one fairly annually but this is bigger than usual,” Jesse Curtis said.

For Sue Curtis, it’s not just difficult for the farmers. It’s hard on the whole family unit.

“It makes me sick to see it we’ve been through it once already this spring and that was much worse but all the work and money that the guys have put into farming and the time and labor it’s just going down the drain here and they got to start over it’s really hard on them. It’s hard on the family,” Sue Curtis a farmer from Seward said.

But even though the flooding has caused some problems for the Curtis’s right now, that doesn’t mean they won’t be back and replanting this season.

“It’s a challenge but we’ll just dig back out and start over again,” Jesse Curtis said.

For the last 7 days, rain amounts throughout Nebraska have been about 400% above normal.