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She was in bed at 6:20 a.m. when she heard a "whishing" sound. She got up to find water covering the floor. Her husband, Ted, leaped out of bed, looked out the window and shouted "Son of a (expletive)!"
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A big boulder along Highway 56 through Genoa ,Wi. Dick Riniker photo |
"Then all hell broke loose," Rita Hines said.
Outside, water was choking the streets of this hamlet of about 640 people in the bluffs and ravines about an hour and a half northwest of Madison. The water in their bedroom shot up 2 feet in 10 minutes.
They struggled outside, wading through thigh-deep water in the dark with their dog, Pepe, swimming alongside.
The couple were among hundreds of people who fled their homes Sunday as rivers, streams and creeks in southwestern Wisconsin rushed over their banks after two straight days of thunderstorms. The deluge turned the countryside in Vernon, Crawford and Richland counties into bogs, drowned crops and strained dams nearly to the breaking point.
Damage estimates in Crawford, Grant, La Crosse, Richland and Vernon counties topped $20 million by midday today and were expected to keep climbing.
Gays Mills resident Mason Evans Jr. said the storm left 8 feet of water in his house.
"It broke me," Gays Mills resident Mason Evans Jr. said. "I lost everything."
No injuries were reported, and people started slogging back to their homes today. But the worst may be yet to come.
Forecasts called for more rain through the end of the week, and emergency officials were closely monitoring four of the 22 earthen dams owned by Vernon County, said Meg Galloway, who oversees dams for the state Department of Natural Resources.
Water spilled into emergency overflow troughs at some of the dams. One, the Hidden Valley dam, suffered substantial damage from erosion but was still holding this afternoon.
Two other dams under stress sit on tributaries flowing into the Kickapoo River, and one is on a tributary flowing into the Mississippi River, Galloway said. The dams store up to 6,300 acre feet of water and are classified as high hazard, meaning homes and bridges could be damaged if they give way, Galloway said.
Nearly 80 people living near seven dams in Vernon County were evacuated because the dams are classified as high hazard, she said.
Gov. Jim Doyle spent today morning touring southwestern Wisconsin, a region of towering bluffs and corn fields tucked into steep valleys and gullies. He examined a washed out road in Soldiers Grove and comforted people at the Gays Mills Fire Station.
Evans told Doyle he had nothing but the galoshes, sweatshirt and sweatpants he was wearing.
"At least you're here," the governor said, shaking his hand.
Doyle also had State Patrol Superintendent Dave Collins track down Lee Ann Ruegg's daughter in Florida so Ruegg could tell her she was all right. Ruegg broke down in tears as the governor gripped her shoulders, gently promising to do everything he could to help.
Ruegg, 53, said her house is underwater. The flood waters rose so quickly Sunday morning they lifted her boyfriend's boat off its trailer, and the two had to scramble aboard to escape.
"The current was so dang swift I had to give her hell to get through," said Ruegg's boyfriend, 57-year-old David George. "It was nuts."
The couple is now living in George's van. They don't know what they'll do if more rain comes.
"This is all we have," Ruegg said. "You work a lifetime to get what you got and it's gone."
Downtown Gays Mills was still soaked in waist-deep, muddy water today, but emergency officials decided enough water had receded to let people back in their homes to grab some belongings.
Jason Brandt, 28, of Woodland, stood at a rescue staging tent, snapping pictures with his cell phone. Down the block was a house he had closed on on Friday, surrounded by water. Brandt said he tried to get to Gays Mills Sunday night, but ended up driving his van into a washout and blowing a tire.
"Couldn't believe it," he said, looking disgusted.
Doyle and emergency management officials estimated damage at $11.4 million in Crawford County, at least $9.5 million in Vernon County and $3.1 million in Richland County. Doyle already has declared those three counties state disaster areas.
He said he plans to seek federal aid when damage assessments are complete, but "right now people are still in the middle of this," the governor said.
