The flood of 2019 has caused mass devastation on the entire area since March and in some parts is not over yet. For those of us who are now sitting dry, the clean-up process has begun. One of the next steps is to find the missing pieces that floated away with the extremely fast currents that flowed through.

Jim Gerking with Entire Recycling dealt with water running across Hwy. 136 and over the railroad tracks in front of his old building site in Phelps City.  This rushing river picked up Entire’s three section, 70 foot scale and floated the pieces west and over the top of the railroad tracks. Jim said, “It’s hard to believe, but when the water first went down we observed a groove washed in the rock on the east side of the track and rock washed from under some of the track to the west about 600 feet. We found one section of our scale lodged against Brian Kelly’s grain bin and a six bundle stack of banded railroad ties!”

At this time, the other two sections have not been found, nor seen from the air. Jim hopes to find these so the west driveway might be restored where the scale is missing. One would think that they would not have made it all the miles south and into the Missouri River before they sank or lodged somewhere.

Jim is offering a $500 reward ($250 per section) to retrieve the scale parts. Please call 402-297-3156 or 402-297-6673 or tell Brian Kelly or Chad Ottmann if you have information about these  lost sections. Each are light blue in color and 23 or 24 feet long and 11 feet wide.