The flood recovery serviceship has been an adventure. We have seen many different people and heard many different stories. The project has been perfect for putting my skills of writing, photography and video to use to help share Nebraskan’s stories about what happened on the floods of March 2019, what they’re doing now to recover and what they think the future will look like in terms of weather events.
I have done many different stories so far this summer. My first trip was with two of my fellow students and a professor from the College of Journalism and Mass Communications. We covered a farmer who was repairing fence along his pasture with the help from a FFA group from Meridian, Nebraska. My favorite part of that trip was getting the UNL van stuck in the pasture and having to be pulled out by a tractor.
I was then sent on a mission to research other students who are serving communities in Nebraska and helping them repair from the flood. This involved searching through Instagrams, Twitters, Facebooks, and google searches, so basically, I spent the day stalking people.
My next trip was about a farmer in Fullerton, Nebraska, who again was having help from a group from an FFA group. This one was actually from Kansas which was very cool to see them helping out a neighboring state. The farmer also had a woman from Wisconsin who has been helping out communities in Nebraska for months to recover. I actually was pumped because the farmer let us ride his four wheelers around his field.
I also covered a story in Columbus, Nebraska, about their golf course that was badly damaged from the flood. They are still recovering from the flood because 9 of their holes are still not playable. This trip was awesome because I wrote my first article for the summer!
The last trip I was on involved my group covering 9 people in one day. I went to Osmond, Nebraska, and took some b-roll footage. I went to Norfolk and was at the interview of the mayor. Finally, I interviewed a resident of Osmond to talk to them about the flood in March.
All in all, the project is going really well. We are starting work on our documentary which is are big project for the rest of the summer, and I look forward to seeing the final product.
