Here & Now

State Prepares for Potential Floods

Brian Satula:

Primarily it’s in the southeast and going to the southwest part of the state, and that’s an area essentially from Sheboygan down to Grant County and then over to Kenosha County. That’s the hardest hit areas.

Zac Schultz:

And how severe is this? Are we talking people that get flooded out every spring, or is it beyond that?

Brian Satula:

Obviously, we’ve experienced a lot of rainfall over this past week and even last week sometime. The previous rain that we had, had swollen many of the rivers, and then we received rain over the last 48 hours of two to three inches, so that increases the problem. There are some areas that typically have flooding problems, and we have experienced that, but it’s not at a point right now where we have major flooding, widespread flooding across the state.

Zac Schultz:

And the most recent forecasts are actually calling for less rain than predicted over the next week. Is that a big help?

Brian Satula:

Absolutely. What it allows to happen is the rivers to recede a little bit, and that is helpful in compounding the problem, where you have rain after rain after rain. When we have these breaks in between, it’s great to help alleviate the problems, consequential problems of flooding or the increased rain.

Zac Schultz:

When people think of flooding, their most recent memory of flooding is 2008 when I-94 was shut down because of the Rock River. Are we anywhere near that at this point?

Brian Satula:

No, not at this time because we’ve had the rain and we had a break. And when we have rain again, we’ve had a chance for rivers to recede a little bit. It’s not affecting major highways. And we don’t have the 2008 experience, where we had widespread flooding everywhere and we had a lot of major roads and detours around the state. We’re not experiencing that this time.

Zac Schultz:

But we’re not out of flood season. Most of the northwoods still has snow-pack and more snow coming down today. So, how long do we have to worry about this flooding?

Brian Satula:

Well, until the snowpack is gone, and that's typically all the way until June, depending on what the temperatures are. This season, we've had colder than normal temperatures, so that snow will stay there. In some ways, that’s a benefit because instead of getting all of the rain at the same time, the snow that’s up north will gradually melt down. But I was just looking at the Weather Service out of Duluth, and there’s some communities that are experiencing up to 20 inches of snow over the last couple of hours here event, the last 48 hours event.

Zac Schultz:

All right. Well, we’ll keep on top of it. I'm sure you will, too. Thanks for your time.

Brian Satula:

Thank you.