Waterbury, Nebraska
9 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1955 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Ottercreek Township. It lies in ZIP code area 68785. The Survey maps it on the Waterbury quadrangle. 72 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,309 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresWaterbury fell from 73 to 72 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 73 | |
| 2020 | 72 | -1 (-1%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
5 surveys from 9 printed sheetsMatched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.
- 1955 USGS Sioux City quadrangle1:250000, 4 printings
- 1958 USGS Sioux City quadrangle1:250000
- 1959 USGS Sioux City quadrangle1:250000
- 1967 USGS Waterbury quadrangle1:24000
- 1986 USGS Sioux City South quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
6 since 2008Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 6 fires within 5 miles of Waterbury between 2008 and 2020, burning about 80 acres in total. None started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Reported cause | Fires |
|---|---|
| Debris and open burning | 3 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 2 |
| Power generation/transmission/distribution | 1 |
The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.
| Date | Cause | Size | Reported by | Name on the report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 June 2014 | Debris and open burning | 3.0 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 6 May 2017 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | 30 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 30 April 2020 | Equipment and vehicle use | 2.0 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 14 April 2008 | Debris and open burning | 20 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 10 April 2009 | Equipment and vehicle use | 5.0 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 4 March 2016 | Debris and open burning | 20 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
7 since 2002Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Waterbury in 7 storm reports between 2002 and 2025: 4 hail, 2 thunderstorm wind, 1 flash flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 2011 | Hail | Waterbury | $50,000 | Large hail, driven by strong winds, broke numerous windows, dented vehicles, and caused widespread crop damage. |
| June 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterbury | - | Six inch diameter tree limbs were downed by thunderstorm winds. |
| August 2011 | Flash Flood | Waterbury | - | Heavy rainfall from thunderstorms caused Pidgeon Creek to overflow, flooding some farmland. |
| July 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterbury | - | Thunderstorm winds caused tree damage, including some trees blown down. The winds also caused minor damage to structures. |
| June 2025 | Hail | Waterbury | - | no account filed |
| June 2025 | Hail | Waterbury | - | no account filed |
| July 2002 | Hail | Waterbury | - | no account filed |
Nearest settlements
The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.
| Map | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Martinsburg | 6.2 miles | 18 | |
| Allen | 6.5 miles | 9 | |
| Ponca | 7.4 miles | 20 | |
| Emerson | 12.4 miles | 10 | |
| Dixon | 14.2 miles | 9 | |
| Concord | 14.4 miles | 9 | |
| Ionia (historical) | 14.7 miles | 19 | |
| Wakefield | 14.7 miles | 9 |
Elsewhere
Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.
| Wikipedia article on Waterbury | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q1844284 | The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0). |
Provenance
This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 834500. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.




