They call it a “1,000-year flood.”

It’s the standard to which they built the 20-plus flood-control dams in Vernon County. That standard is to withstand a flood that statistically may happen only once every 1,000 years.

According to Vernon County’s Land and Water Conservation Department, those who built the county’s dams in the 1950s and 1960s did a pretty good job, because after dealing with the rain we received on Aug. 18 and Aug. 19, they, in some cases, withstood pressure two times greater than that for which they were designed.

There have been bad floods in Vernon County stretching through history, but as far as recorded history, we only know of two other floods, the flood of 1951 and the flood of 1978, that rival the flood of 2007. And in places like Chaseburg and Gays Mills, the flood of 2007 takes the cake. Perhaps overall, countywide, it does as well.

According to Cindy Ackerman, the county’s emergency management director, areas of the county received between 6.5 and 11 inches of rain on Aug. 18 and Aug. 19. It was ironic that in the Aug. 16 paper, the Broadcaster ran a story in which agricultural agents for both Crawford and Vernon Counties said recent rains had produced enough moisture to sustain us through the rest of the growing season. Little did we know what was coming next.

Meteorologist Dan Baumgardt with the National Weather Service in La Crosse, said the magnitude of the Aug. 18-Aug. 19 flood waters might be something a meteorologist deals with, “only two or three times over their entire career,” and that’s covering an area of thousands of square miles.

Seven people in Minnesota died because of the flooding. While there was no loss of life in Wisconsin, the damage totals are not yet fully tallied and already at unbelievable levels. Ackerman said Vernon County’s totals are $24.8 million for public property and $8 million for agriculture. That’s $32.8 million. Private property hasn’t even been totalled yet.

We’ve been heartened that President Bush and the folks at the Federal Emergency Management Agency moved up their timetable for dealing with Wisconsin’s storm damage. Bush has ruled that this flood, in five Wisconsin counties, is a major disaster and worthy of FEMA aid, which we have detailed starting in our page A-1 story this week.

We’re glad to see the federal government come through, especially after getting turned down for aid during the Viola tornado in 2005.

But aside from the damage, there is the ongoing fear of more flooding and the mental toll this has taken on everybody who has to deal with it. We asked Baumgardt how meteorologists at the NWS deal with handling weather conditions that cause property damage and destroy lives.

“That’s an interesting side of the story that people don’t ask us about,” Baumgardt said. “We’re all people, too. When we hear of people having to be rescued, it’s not easy for us. (Aug. 18 and Aug. 19) was a historic event. You stop thinking about it in terms of weather and start thinking about it personally.”

Consider the plight of David Thomas Blackburn, 37, of Lewiston, Minn., who died in the flood only after pushing his wife, Dawn, to safety.

Blackburn drowned in the fast-rising flood waters Aug. 19 in La Crescent township in rural Houston County, Minn., after his foot became wedged between his vehicle and a tree. A car carrying Blackburn, his wife, Dawn, and a friend was swept off Houston County Road 6 by high water. He helped his wife and their friend into a tree before he and the vehicle were swept away. Mr. Blackburn left behind two young sons.

The flood waters will recede. The millions of dollars of damage we have suffered will have been recorded for history and, if handled properly, the thorn in the side of every property owner involved will be relieved, should local, state and federal authorities act accordingly.

It is the young who will lead us, and hearing the story Friday that the De Soto High School football team was helping flood victims in that area was most heartening.

The human side will stay with us who experienced the “1,000-year flood” for a long, long time.