But that’s not the end of the story.

Jerry Wise of Culpeper heard about Kai’s efforts and decided to take it up a notch — a big notch.

He farms in Virginia but also has a scrap metal recycling business called Wise Services and Recycling. In his scrap yard was a functional bridge he had recently scrapped for the Virginia Department of Roads.

“I knew people were hauling hay to Nebraska. I didn’t have enough hay to share, but I wanted to help. So, I wondered if Nebraska could use the bridge we scrapped. Believe me, I had a lot of dead silence on the phone as I tried to find the bridge a home,” Wise said, with a laugh. “It’s not every day you get a call saying, ‘I have a bridge for you, can you use it?’”

Eventually, Wise contacted the Nebraska Farm Bureau, whose representatives contacted Cedar County Commissioner Craig Bartels of Coleridge.

“About 10 days after the flooding, I got this call from a Farm Bureau rep who said a bridge had been donated and did we want it?” Bartels said. “I thought about it for about 10 seconds and said, ‘Yeah, we’ll take it.’”

There are over 340 bridges in Cedar County, and two of them were impacted by the flood waters and one was destroyed, Bartels said.