June 11, 2010: Bredthauer Dam Failure Floods North Loup

Thunderstorms from Friday night June 11th into Saturday morning June 12th brought two to three inches of rain to much of the south central Nebraska and north central Kansas. The storms also brought a couple rounds of severe weather primarily in the form of straight line wind damage. Below (clickable image) are reports from the evening of Friday June 11th into the morning of Saturday June 12th.

The very heavy rainfall also created excessive runoff across portions of Valley County Nebraska which caused the Bredthauer Dam (located approximately 4 1/2 miles upstream of North Loup) to break. Once the dam broke Saturday afternoon, the water went downstream into North Loup creating extensive flooding throughout town. At one point, the entire town was evacuated due to the flooding. Below are aerial images of the dam and flooding that occurred during Saturday afternoon.