An agency that provides flood relief is now in need of it. Two Salvation Army summer camps in eastern Nebraska have been forced to close, camps that serve hundreds of kids and adults from Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota. Salvation Army spokeswoman Susan Eustice says Camp Eppley, near Bellevue (Nebraska), sits along the Platte River, which is well out of its banks.
“Two-hundred children were affected by two of our camps that absolutely had to close down due to this flooding,” Eustice says. “The septic tanks didn’t work to our new cabins. They were immersed in water.”
A third camp was able to relocate. She says water covers the main road into the camp, the baseball field is underwater and the recreation hall basement has a foot of standing water. The closings mean no summer camp for a lot of kids, but it should just be a temporary setback.
“There are over a thousand adults and children that attend this camp throughout the summertime,” Eustice says. “We have a retreat for older adults, that’s one of the sessions. Service extension camps are for kids that come from the division based in Omaha which includes areas from Nebraska, South Dakota and Iowa. We have a music camp that unfortunately had to be canceled and a sports camp that will be relocated.”
Eustice says the Salvation Army has been busy for weeks, helping people in the region to mop up and clean up after floods. With the latest round of floods, she says supplies are now running low.
“The Salvation Army is asking the public for monetary donations that we can use toward the purchase of cleaning supplies,” Eustice says. “The Salvation Army can really stretch that dollar and we hope to replenish our cleaning supply kits which are down now to only about ten or twelve.”
She says they started the season with 4,000 clean-up kits. Each kit costs $26.50. The Salvation Army is also hoping volunteers will step forward and help do physical work to clean up the camps. They hope to have it open for another session next week.