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Mother Nature has beaten Wisconsin down over the last year, pounding it with floods in August, burying it with snow over the winter and sending monsoon-like rain to flood it again this spring. The brutal weather cost millions of dollars in damage to homes and businesses.
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Bookstore owners Eddy Nix and his wife Allegra Wakest take a break from their sizable clean-up duties Friday in Viola. Residents and business owners are picking up the pieces as record flood waters receded. Lee Newspapers photo
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Besides the sore backs from shoveling, the moldy basements and the piles of waterlogged carpet on the curb, months of unrelenting weather inflicted a more insidious pain, leaving nerves on edge, stealing sleep and upping overall irritability, psychologists say.
Renee Klotz, 46, of Wheatland used to love watching storm clouds gather. But that was before a freak tornado in January destroyed her home and she watched flood waters this week cover the street outside her Burlington apartment. Now whenever she hears a storm warning she gets nervous.
“It’s insane. I’ve never experienced such extremes. I’ve lived in Wisconsin all my life and this is just crazy,” Klotz said. “You just think, ‘Oh no.’ You think it isn’t going to strike twice. But then I never thought it could the first time. You’re a little bit on edge now.”
Wisconsin has seen punishing weather patterns in the last 10 months. In August heavy rains pounded southwestern Wisconsin — Viroqua got 9.73 inches on Aug. 18-20 — and left the region’s small towns underwater.
Winter struck with a vengeance, dumping dozens of inches of snow. Gays Mills, which ended up completely underwater in August, got nearly 80 inches of snow between November and March. Madison got 101.4 inches, a new record. Milwaukee got 99.1 inches. A freak tornado struck Kenosha County on Jan. 7, causing $21.6 million in damage.
Last week’s storms flooded parts of nearly the entire southern half of the state. Madison and Milwaukee both set new rainfall records for June by Thursday. Thursday alone saw reports of nine tornadoes in the state, according to the National Weather Service.
Hundreds of people had to be evacuated and scores of roads closed due to washouts. Towns like Gays Mills that were just starting to get back to normal found themselves up to their doorsteps in water and muck again.
Meteorologists say there’s no physical connection between the weather events. But there’s no denying an emotional one, even among weather-hardened Wisconsinites who pride themselves on taking whatever Mother Nature dishes out.
“I’m about as depressed as I’ve ever been in my life,” said Bob Pettit, owner of Apple Land Sports Supply, a wholesale sporting goods distributor in Gays Mills. He had to lay off about 10 employees last week because flood waters prevented trucks from getting to his business. “Ten months apart, I don’t care what you do. Realistically, what’s a man supposed to do?”
U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, a La Crosse Democrat, spent last week touring the flooding. He said people seem more down this time than in August.
“The mood is definitely different. Certainly more depressing,” Kind said. “Just as people were on their feet again and getting their homes and businesses back to normal, they got hit again. It’s heartbreaking.”
Stephen Saunders, an associate psychology professor at Marquette University, said many people could go through acute stress disorder, a version of post traumatic stress disorder.
Storm warnings or even dark clouds can trigger anxiety for people who had intense experiences in previous storms or floods, Saunders said. Road closures that make travel difficult and fear of losing a job because of the weather can add to that — causing anger, depression and driving people to drink or do drugs.
“You begin questioning your own safety,” said Bill Henricks, a psychologist at Columbia St. Mary’s Hospital in Milwaukee.
Randy Schiesser, a counselor and social worker at Gunderson Lutheran Medical Center in La Crosse, works with businesses’ employees who need help with mental issues. He said he saw about a dozen people last fall who suffered from sleep loss related to the August floods. This past week’s storms triggered flashbacks to August in several patients, he said.
“That’s pretty normal,” he said. “Certainly, the devastation this area has seen is quite rare. We had two 100-year floods in less than a year. We’re a pretty hardy bunch. We’re used to weather, but boy, what we’ve had has been a lot.”
Darrell Augustine, 46, owns ABC Lettering, an embroidery shop on the banks of the Crawfish River in Columbus. On Thursday he said he’d slept about 10 hours in the previous five days. He had to stay awake to keep eight sump pumps in his shop fueled to keep out the rising river. His wife, Jenny Augustine, 43, said she cried for days during the storms.
“It’s really depressing,” Darrell Augustine said. “Stop raining.”
Henricks said depression could deepen if the summer brings more severe weather.
Richard Bush, the 49-year-old president of Royal Bank in Gays Mills, said he’s trying to stay positive, but it’s difficult. He’s heard from several people that they won’t return post-flood this time.
“Whoever you can tell,” he said as he watched the Kickapoo River creep up to his bank’s foundation this week, “tell ’em to give us a break.”
Area road closures
Eastbound lanes of Interstate 94 opened Sunday after being closed from Exit 92 at Lake Delton to Exit 108 near Portage, according to the Wisconsin State Patrol at Tomah, but westbound lanes were open. Between Madison and Milwaukee, the westbound lanes between Lakes Mills and Delafield were closed, but eastbound lanes were open.
Wild Wisconsin weather has explanations
MADISON (AP) — The flood-snow-flood triple whammy that whacked Wisconsin in less than a year isn’t connected, meteorologists say, but there is a scientific explanation for each phenomenon:
The cause was a decaying tropical storm in the western Gulf of Mexico, said Jonathan Martin, chairman of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Atmospheric Sciences Department. Moist air flowed north and collided with a cold front parked over Minnesota and Wisconsin, resulting in downpours.
Martin said a weak La Nina effect, a phenomenon in which the equatorial Pacific Ocean cools, was at play during the winter. Meanwhile, a northwestern air flow took up residence over the southern half of the state. It brought almost every winter storm in the Great Lakes region straight through Wisconsin, he said.
A January tornado that struck Kenosha County was a freak occurrence, Martin said, but not unprecedented. Wisconsin has seen tornadoes in every month except February.
FEMA to set up first disaster center in Reedsburg; others will follow
MADISON — The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s first Disaster Recovery Center will open today in Reedsburg, with others in affected counties soon to follow.
Reedsburg is in Sauk County, one of five Wisconsin counties that President Bush declared a federal disaster Saturday. The other counties declared disasters so far are Columbia, Crawford, Vernon and Milwaukee.
Centers in those other counties are expected to open sometime this week, according to Wisconsin Emergency Management.
At the centers people who sustained damages from last week’s storms can learn about applying for federal aid.
On Sunday, the Rock County Sheriff’s Department was recommending people evacuate low-lying areas near the Rock River. The river, already well above the flood stage, was expected to continue to rise over the next several days. Sheriff Robert Spoden said forecasters expect it to rise another two feet in the next five days.
Throughout the weekend crews monitored the Pardeeville dam and on Sunday, state emergency management officials said repairs have begun to stabilize it.
The dam on the Fox River in Columbia County was still considered failing, but Wisconsin Emergency Management said the city-owned dam on the river was still holding back Park Lake.
On the Net:
Federal Emergency Management Agency: http://www.fema.gov/
