Frederica Freyberg:
Following historic flooding in southeast Wisconsin, Milwaukee County’s latest estimates on damage to public infrastructure has reached at least $34 million, a figure that doesn’t include individual property loss. The Federal Emergency Management Agency arrived this week to help the state with a preliminary damage assessment, the first step toward potential financial assistance.

FEMA agent:
Hi, I’m with FEMA.

Frederica Freyberg:
FEMA is going door to door in southeast Wisconsin over the next several days looking to understand the magnitude of damage caused by recent record flooding.

FEMA agent:
Any rain water in your basement?

Nicole Wilson:
Our teams will go wherever the state and the county requests that we go. We will see as much damage as they ask us to see. We have four teams in Milwaukee County, one in Waukesha County and one in Washington County.

Frederica Freyberg:
Accompanied by local officials, their objective is to ask questions and collect information.

Cassandra Libal:
Prior to this, we’ve been working to coordinate all the information gathering from 211 reports so that we could give that picture to WEM and to the FEMA representatives of the damage that we’ve experienced in the community.

Frederica Freyberg:
211 has been flooded with thousands of daily calls from residents reporting their losses.

Greg Engle:
Flooded basements, foundational damage. A lot of people with lost possessions and couches and furniture and things like that. So a lot of folks here are hurting.

Tyrone Roberts:
You know, I’m disabled. I need help.

Frederica Freyberg:
People like Tyrone Roberts.

Tyrone Roberts:
We never had this much trash on our block. Now the garbage man won’t even come down the street, so we just got to deal with it and do the most as we can as a community.

Frederica Freyberg:
In the short term, officials recommend calling 211.

Greg Engle:
211 can take that damage information but they can also connect residents with services in their area that can help them.

Frederica Freyberg:
But large-scale aid is still a ways off.

Cassandra Libal:
We’re really just trying to get a snapshot, a representative sample of what has happened across the county.

Nicole Wilson:
And this is the first step in the process toward getting a major disaster declaration so here we are in the beginning phase of here. FEMA will make the recommendation to the president. The president has the final say on whether a disaster declaration will be issued.

Frederica Freyberg:
When that could happen is still unknown.