Here is a picture taken near the end of the season on the Alpena Road heading west from Piper's driveway.  This location is prone to drift due to the hill being above the height of the road.  Only one small area was blown clear in spite of good prior management and avoiding upwind placement.  The snow was simply too deep and had no where to go.  Digging out was slow and the snow was packed hard by the wind and powdering out.  You can see the smooth terrain that was over the fences and hills with an endless bright white snowscape that was like a desert's alter ego in ice.  For a little while as far as you could see there was just white rolling hills, no roads, only trees and power poles interupted to remind you where you were at.   At last Spring had arrived and the exposed dark gravel quickly warms and thaws.  The worst seemed to finally be over. 

Once warm breezes got a start on the snow,  we were facing the aftermath of actions.  Some roads plowed regularly had lost gravel and the ditches slowly saturated the subgrades and shoulders.   Roads were vulnerable to distortion from trucks and equipment and our own efforts to haul gravel to repair damaged roads.  The surfaces lacked gravel, so blading could only do so much, and machines had to stay in the center of the road to stay stable.   In early June we had a flash flood following a heavy rain of 5" of rain that fell in a few hours.  The soaked soil absorbed almost none of the rain  In ten locations across the county roadways were severed by flood waters.  This photo at right is near the Geppard Unit at Cannon River Ranch in northwestern Buffalo County.  The creek was swelled by two large stockdams that failed from the rain as well, compounding the runoff's blow.

Here is a photo taken a few miles downstream looking east toward Bobby Ellsworth's residence in the distance.  The channel here is normally carried with a 60" culvert seasonally with little if any difficulty.  At this volume it would exceed the capacity of 8 pipes of that diameter.  The roadway was completed gone once the water went down again.  Scour from the washover moved boulders in the fill 50 yards down the channel below.  Repair was difficult with gravel supply distant and poor soils at the location.  Fill had to be dug from a nearby hill and hauled with loader to the crossing. 

A few more miles downstream, the stream has taken under another road, shown here looking east on Clayton Knippling's driveway.  A 10' round culvert usually has capacity to handle channel flow, and two smaller 30" round culverts at a sub-channel assist drainage when minor flooding occurs.  The flow here would require three culverts 10' diameter to handle this volume.  Here it is only a mile from reaching the Missouri River just below the Big Bend Dam at Ft. Thompson.  Taking with it tons and tons of dirt, sand, rocks, and debree.

This culvert kept up for a long time but it peaked just enough to rip the top and lower ditch down a foot in just a short time before receeding.  Later two additional 24" culverts were added.  this replaced a failed 24" pipe and a properly functioning 30" culvert installed nearby.

This shot looks from the corner shown above looking east.  The watershed area is huge, but the ruler flat foreground slows the water sufficiently to prevent serious flooding from overwhelming drainage culverts.  Since installation of new pipes in 2000 the area has had no drainages issues. 

This picture is a residential road near Barry Knippling's residence.  This normally tame stream created a mess when a small 15" culvert plugged with reeds and mud.  The culvert was removed and a 24" arch replaced it, curing the problem.  I like this picture because I used to walk to grade school for 8 years on this road.  I know every inch of that creek and growing up had a lot of fun playing with the water.