Here & Now

Dane County Under Water

Frederica Freyberg:

Weather shared the Wisconsin headlines with politics this week, especially in Dane County, where Governor Walker joined local officials to declare a state of emergency on Wednesday, after Monday’s storms closed roads, swamped homes and left one person dead. Hardest hit? Western Dane County, pounded by more than 15 inches of rain. Tonight with more rain predicted, Madison’s isthmus is in harm’s way. The Yahara River, the river that connects Madison’s two lakes bulged over its banks as rushing water flowed from Lake Mendota down into Lake Monona. Rising levels there had shoreline residents sandbagging to protect homes. Dane County Executive Joe Parisi joins us now by phone from Mazomanie, one of the hardest hit spots. Thanks very much for doing so.

Joe Parisi:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what’s the latest on flood conditions and threats?

Joe Parisi:

Well, it really depends on the side of the county you’re on. Here in Mazomanie, the waters have subsided. As you mentioned, this community was very hard hit. And now we’re in the recovery, the clean-up phase. We have a lot of people whose homes were inundated. They’re looking for resources. We’re connecting them with the help that they need. So we’re in the recovery phase here. Now, the challenge that we have is the water that landed on the western side of the county is now making its way through our chain of lakes. So the more active situation now is in the city of Madison and then along the chain of lakes in towns like Monona and the town of Dunn.

Frederica Freyberg:

How big is the threat to the city of Madison?

Joe Parisi:

Well, there is already water in the streets in the isthmus. A number of streets have been closed. And there could be more that are closing. There’s a lot of water moving from Lake Mendota into Monona now. So the Yahara River is flooded. And the challenge in Madison is that a lot of their storm water outfalls that usually empty into the river and into the lakes are now under water. So there’s nowhere for water to drain and the water instead backs up into the neighborhoods. And then further down, in Monona and other communities on the lakes, they’re dealing with literal lake flooding, because we are at record high levels for most of our lakes at the moment. So we really have three somewhat unique situations going on. We have recovery, we have the water backing up through the storm sewers in Madison and then we have lake flooding in other communities.

Frederica Freyberg:

As for the rain Monday night into Tuesday, has Dane County ever seen anything like that?

Joe Parisi:

No. That was record rainfall, particularly for that period of time. That was actually a record, a state record of one rain event. I lived in Dane County my entire life. I’ve never witnessed anything like it.

Frederica Freyberg:

What’s the dollar damage estimate to homes, businesses and infrastructure?

Joe Parisi:

Our initial assessment — and it’s certainly not complete — is over $100 million at this point.

Frederica Freyberg:

Does government have to do anything, in your mind, differently going forward if this is kind of a new weather pattern?

Joe Parisi:

Well, we certainly do have to be aware this is no longer a 1,000-year event. We’ve received 100-year rainfalls every few years lately. Our climate is certainly changing. It’s becoming much wetter. We’re receiving much more rain. We’ve been building into our updated emergency natural hazard mitigation plans, this prediction for increased precipitation. So the answer is yes, we certainly have to be aware that this is going to occur more often.

Frederica Freyberg:

Does Dane County expect to get a federal disaster assistance?

Joe Parisi:

That’s the reason — we certainly expect we will. That’s the reason that we’re documenting everything that we have. There’s a process one has to follow to get FEMA assistance. Declaring the state of emergency was the first step and then documenting the amount of damage is the important next step.

Frederica Freyberg:

Can property owners recover any losses as probably most are not covered by insurance?

Joe Parisi:

You know, it really depends. It’s much more difficult for, for example, private homeowners. There has to be a large cumulative threshold passed and then there has to be an individual threshold passed, too. So it puts a lot of folks in a really challenging spot.

Frederica Freyberg:

How seriously should people be taking the threats from this kind of rising water in Madison and then downstream?

Joe Parisi:

Well, they should certainly monitor the situation. The communities downstream and some in Madison that are looking at lake flooding are already sandbagging and already working on that and monitoring that, Monona in particular. In the city of Madison, it’s an ongoing active situation and people should be aware and people — we have a website. People go to CountyOfDane.com, there’s a link, a very obvious link to a website dedicated just to the flooding and it has updates on it. It has resources. But particularly next week, early next week when it’s supposed to rain a lot, we could see even worse flooding in the city of Madison. So people should be aware. They should be paying attention to their local news and visiting that website because it’s still a very active situation.

Frederica Freyberg:

Okay. Dane County Executive Joe Parisi, thanks very much and good luck.

Joe Parisi:

Thank you.