Saturday, March 30th, 2019
Raising some help
Farmer gathers donations for Nebraska
By Tom Stankard
Photo by Dan Melograna/The Daily Standard
Daniel Stose on Friday afternoon displays some supplies such as stakes and fence wire needed by farmers in Nebraska. Stose is collecting donated goods and will transport them next week. Farmers in the Midwest have suffered catastrophic losses due to flooding.
MENDON - A Mendon farmer will join a convoy heading to Nebraska on Friday to help fellow farmers affected by disastrous flooding.
"I don't like sitting on the sidelines," said Daniel Stose, 29. "I want to do something about it."
Floodwaters are beginning to recede across the Midwest after heavy rainfall combined with rapid snowmelt caused disastrous flooding along the swelling Missouri River Basin. Nebraska on Thursday received President Donald Trump's federal disaster status approval.
"This is the most widespread weather natural disaster we've had in our state's history," as 85 percent of Nebraska's 93 counties in the state have been impacted, Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts wrote on Twitter.
Thousands of people have been forced from their homes, and some have yet to return to assess the damage.
Three people have died, and damage costs are rising to more than $1.4 billion across Nebraska and Iowa. Flooding has taken a heavy toll on agriculture, submerging tens of thousands of acres, imperiling stockpiled grain and killing livestock. Ricketts also estimated that more than 2,000 homes and 341 businesses have been damaged or destroyed in Nebraska alone.
When Stose saw the devastation, he said he felt heartbroken.
"It's heart-wrenching. They lost everything, their house, cattle, barn, crops, everything," he said.
He and his father-in-law, Jeff Baldridge, plan to join close to 40 others who are part of the Ohio Relief Haulers. The convoy will leave from the Akron area early Friday morning and is expected to arrive in the Cornhusker State by Saturday morning.
Farmers there are in a bad situation and in need of fencing material most of all, Stose said.
"They need anything they can use to build a fence quickly to keep their cattle somewhere. Right now they're roaming because everything is destroyed," he added.
Farmers also need hay to feed cattle and milk replacer to feed calves whose mothers have died, he said.
Supplies and donations can be dropped off at Mount Tabor Church of God, 9744 U.S. 127, Celina, no later than Monday, Stose said.
- The Associated Press contributed to this story
