Driftless Area ravaged by rising waters
More road closures, evacuations as state faces more rain
COON VALLEY – It was 1 a.m. when the sheets of rain falling out of the sky woke Rena Deflorian.
“I looked out my window and I could see the road outside … was expanding,” Deflorian, 65, said. “It was just going from one yard to the next, and you could see there was a lot of current going through it — so you knew it was a flood that was coming.”
An hour and a half later, Deflorian and her neighbors were fleeing their apartment building in tiny Coon Valley — a village of fewer than 800 residents in Vernon County, where nearly a foot of rain fell in just hours Monday night.
As the Madison area braced for a second downpour in two weeks that could put its neighborhoods underwater, heavy rains pounded the western counties of the state, resulting in evacuations and more than three dozen roads closed in Vernon County where Coon Creek lies.
As Deflorian drove away from the churning waters flooding the village, emergency responders also were evacuating residents of the Bothne House assisted living facility — taking the seniors first to the village hall and then to the elementary school after waters rose, she said.
Deflorian, who has lived in Coon Valley for 31 years, said the area always floods — “even in wintertime” — but the
destruction leveled by Monday’s downpour has been the worst in her memory. “I’ve never seen it this bad,” she said. In nearby Chaseburg, every major roadway in and out of the village of 284 was either destroyed or under rushing floodwaters.
A piece of County Road KK that crosses the Coon Creek broke apart and fell into rushing waters spanning far beyond the banks of the creek, destroying a cattle pasture. A tilted pole with a sign that reads “Big ass bull in here” is the only clue to the fenced pasture that existed before the rainfall.
Vernon County sits among what’s known as the state’s Driftless Area, which was spared from glaciers drifting across the Midwest hundreds of thousands of years ago. That means it’s not flat and is defined by steep bluffs and deep valleys. Heavy rains spill downhill, causing mudslides in some areas and downed trees in others.
“It’s one of the most beautiful areas to live in, but it takes its toll like this,” said Susan Erlandson, who farms and owns horses and lives about five miles south of Coon Valley with her partner Julie Mack.
Mack said she was up until 3:30 a.m. Tuesday sweeping water toward their sump pump — a luxury, she notes, until the electricity goes out.
It was just the basement of their farmhouse on Koll Road deep in the woods of southern Vernon County that suffered during the rainfall Monday and early Tuesday, Mack said.
But Erlandson was tense as she and Mack watched a new round of rainfall hit their windows Tuesday afternoon. Just down the road, floodwaters rush over two bridges.
“If this kind of rain would continue this week, the ground is so saturated now I’m not sure where it would go. We just need a week without any rain,” Erlandson said.
Nearly everyone interviewed Tuesday by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said what they’ve seen so far this week is worse than catastrophic flooding that destroyed parts of the same area about a decade ago.
“Some say it’s worse than the big-big flood, and I guess it is,” Erlandson said.
Damage from the flooding reached $50 million exactly 11 years ago, according to the Vernon County Broadcaster, when a foot of rain fell in some areas, washing out roads and bridges and pushing some homes down the side of muddy bluffs.
Those memories are haunting the area as heavy rains fell again Tuesday afternoon. Another round was expected to hit throughout the overnight into Wednesday.
A tornado touched down near Oakfield in Fond du Lack County at 4:10 p.m., according to the National Weather Service.
We Energies reported Tuesday night that more than 22,000 customers were without power in parts of southeastern Wisconsin, the Fox Cities and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Area of Sheboygan, Fond du Lac, Waupun, West Bend, Mequon and Germantown were under flash flood warnings Tuesday night.
Gov. Scott Walker on Tuesday evening declared a state of emergency for Fond du Lac, Juneau, La Crosse, Monroe, Vernon and Washington counties because of the storms. The six counties were added to Walker’s executive order issued last week for Dane County.
“It looks like there will be another widespread 1 to 2 inches, and another band that gets considerably more than that,” said weather service meteorologist Ben Miller.
The best case, he said, would be for the storms to track south of those that doused the stretch of the state from La Crosse to Sheboygan.
But as the day wore on, the signs pointed to another long night.
Just after noon Tuesday it started raining in La Crosse again. A short time later, I-90-94 eastbound was closed due to flooding at Mauston, causing huge backups. On Tuesday evening, westbound lanes were also closed.
In southeastern Wisconsin, the Milwaukee River near Cedarburg was 11.8 feet deep as of noon Tuesday. Flood stage for the river is 11 feet. The weather service was warning that another 1 to 2 inches of rain Tuesday night would raise the river to 14.5 feet.
Residents and businesses along the river were already preparing for the worst. Located just feet from the river bank, Fiddleheads Coffee in Thiensville was surrounded by sandbags, with sump pumps at the ready.
La Crosse reported heavy rain for seven straight hours. In Fond du Lac, there were reports of 3 feet of water across some intersections.
The only good news from the overnight storms: They appeared to have largely missed Madison, which is still recovering from last week’s record storm and flooding.
The overnight storm was the fourth in 11 days to bring multiple inches of rain to parts of southern Wisconsin.
The Weather Service’s Miller said that the cold front coming Tuesday night would deliver temperatures in southern Wisconsin in the low 70s on Wednesday, with much lower humidity,
“It’ll feel a little like fall,” he said. “It’s going to be a pleasant three days, for sure.”