As Nebraska’s climate continues to shift, one riverside town wants to protect itself from another spring like 2019.

But the process has been plagued by bureaucratic setbacks and legal woes: uncertainty maintains a dominant presence across Winslow, Nebraska’s community.

In 1912, the village weathered its first flood. Over the following decades, residents grew to expect a certain amount of flood risk every year. The area in or around the town has flooded eight times in the last century.

But in the early hours of March 14th, 2019, the community’s volunteer firefighter crew was taking an abnormal precaution after a flood warning from the National Weather Service. They were knocking on doors.

Within a few hours, Winslow was inundated with multiple feet of water. At a certain point, evacuations and rescues were no longer possible: members of the fire crew were advising their neighbors by phone to grab water, a blanket, and move upstairs.

Days later, Winslow’s evacuated residents began surveying home damages—by boat.

But some of Winsow’s residents no longer believe it’s safe to move back into a town so squarely in Nebraska’s floodplain. And Winslow’s flood liability may increase in the future as Nebraska’s climate continues to change. Martha Shulski, who runs Nebraksa’s State Climatology Office, said scientists have been tracking those shifts for decades.

Precipitation in eastern Nebraska has increased about ten percent on average over the past few decades. Shulski said that trend will likely continue, and could increase the frequency of pre-flood conditions like the fall of 2018.

In the aftermath of the floods, town trustee Zack Klein mulled over recovery options with disaster agencies, and found the town’s mitigation options were far more limited than he initially realized.

One late night in Winslow, Klein found himself standing on a street corner, wrapping up yet another conversation with emergency management personnel. It seemed increasingly likely that the Winslow he knew was bound to disband. A new question popped into his head.

“I finally just said, ‘What if we move the town?’”

And for a few months, the idea felt promising. A farmer with land a few miles up the road offered to sell the town a plot across the street from the area’s closest school. A group of professors and graduate students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s School of Architecture met with residents to draw up plans for their new hometown. Some looked into whether they could rig their old home up to a truck and slog uphill to Winslow 2.0, and were prepared to apply for FEMA funds to do so.

But that all changed at a town meeting in January, where state, federal and local agencies confirmed a long running fear of Klein’s: it’s illegal to move a town in the state of Nebraska.

Read the full article about moving Winslow by Christina Stella at Harvest Public Media.