Story originally printed in the Vernon Broadcaster or online at www.vernonbroadcaster.com
Published - Sunday, June 22, 2008
Many coping with flood clean up for second time in less than a year
The resiliency of Vernon County residents has been tested by a second catastrophic flood in a 10-month span.
With the latest round of flooding residents, who normally would bounce back and take the challenges head-on, are starting to rethink some things.
Last August the Driftless Region was hit hard with what many termed a 1,000-year flood (although the term 100-year flood also regularly comes up).
Dams filled up, roads washed out, homes were flooded and crops were wiped out. Add on top of that, the subsequent wind storms, a long winter, higher gas prices, a flagging economy. Then, on top of all that, the June 7-8 floods occurred, which were certainly worse in many areas of Vernon County than the flood of 10 months ago. It is not surprising there is a different feeling among those who are dealing with the floods this time.
"We certainly aren't going to put a lot of effort into rebuilding this time," Harmony Valley Farm owner Richard DeWilde said.
DeWilde said he went "above and beyond" in his repair efforts last fall. It was all undone on June 8.
"We were very lucky we had over $100,000 in donations, so we thought we would spend the money and do things right," said DeWilde. "We thought, 'Oh, this will be here a while.'"
In one area, DeWilde said Harmony Valley Farm, which is located west of Viroqua, spent $10,000 to put in a new drainage ditch and slope and seed an area. That area is now in complete disarray.
"It can stay just like that," said DeWilde. "I can't see doing it again."
On the bright side, DeWilde said crops were not as mature as they were during the August flood, so there are more options to replant and recover. Harmony Valley has more than 1,000 Community Supported Agriculture customers who get boxes of fresh produce from the farm on a regular basis, and that allows for some flexibility in these situations, DeWilde said.
"We have a good customer base and our customers are still going to get decent boxes -- it is just that customers wont get that first box of sweet corn in the middle of July like they want," said DeWilde. "It just won't be there because it was washed away."
The impact of two major floods will not put Harmony Valley out of business but it has made DeWilde think about having to deal with more frequent and more extreme conditions. DeWilde said he has considered moving to higher ground, but the answer may be to focus more on his CSA customers and give up the commercial end of the operation because there is more flexibility with the CSA's.
"We can put other things in that box to make up for sweet corn," said DeWilde.
If some areas are dealing with the double whammy of two floods in 10 months, the community of Viola is dealing with a triple whammy of a tornado in 2005 and now two flood events. Viola's former village president Richard Johannesen said the town was still recovering from the 2005 tornado and is concerned about the impact of the repeated disasters on the community.
"I have lived here since 1961 and the water was up to my second step and it is the first time I have ever had water in my basement." said Johannesen. "Everyone's basement is full and it gets to the point where it is mental.
"One of our biggest concerns is our post office," said Johannesen. "They had to move out of there because of flooding and we aren't sure what will happen with the building."
Johannesen said he is hopeful that the federal disaster declaration and the help from FEMA will make the difference with this disaster. Viola did not get FEMA assistance for the 2005 tornado recovery.
Jim Matthes owns the Viola Stockyard and has been integral part of the Viola community all of his life. Matthes, too, wonders if the impact of multiple disasters will be too much for the community.
"So many people were just getting on their feet from August," said Matthes. "Some went out and borrowed to get recovered from that and to fix up all the damage. They certainly have not been able to pay that back in less than a year, so they are wondering what they are going to do. We have had floods in 1951, 1978, 2007 and now this year. It seems like every time we get flooded we lose a couple more houses"
That sense of uncertainty was shared.
"We really aren't sure what we are going to do," said Dennis Brault, who has had the lower level of his town of Viroqua home flooded for the second time in less than a year. "We are not sure if we are going to put it all back together."
Brault and his wife, Yvonne, live just above the Seas Branch dam. They thought they were on a high enough spot that the lake would never reach them. The Braults built their split-level log home in a scenic spot 13 years ago.
"Last year the water came up high enough to get into our septic system and it backed up eight inches of water into our lower level," said Brault. "So, we said that's fine we can deal with this."
Brault and his wife tore out sheetrock, carpet and destroyed furniture. They replaced large ticket items like furniture, appliances and carpet.
"We went out in February and got a washer and dryer and thought we should get something nicer, because we thought we would probably have them for 20 or 30 years," said Brault.
They had just gotten things put back together and on June 9 they were flooded again.
"This time we thought we should get ahead of things and I went out Sunday morning and started to fill sand bags," said Brault. "Last time we had eight inches, so I thought "It will never get higher than that.'"
By the time the water reached its peak ,the Braults had more than four feet of water in their basement. The water came up too fast for the sandbagging efforts. To make things worse many of the items that had been stored in the garage on higher ground were also flooded.
"The valley was water from side to side," said Brault. "I never thought I would ever see that."
During the flood Brault, who was recently elected to the county board, went to the county's emergency operations center to see if he could help.
"I just didn't want to think about what was happening," said Brault.
After the water receded the Braults' son, Jesse, who is Westby High School junior, got on the phone and within hours 20 students showed up to help clean up.
"It was amazing," said Brault. "They worked their tails off and I couldn't believe how much we got done."
However, with mud everywhere and uncertainty about how often the flooding will happen, the Brault's are not sure what they will do with the house.
"We had it surveyed and the flood plane checked before we built and the location was fine," said Brault. "We never thought we would ever have a problem."
It is this apparent shift in the benchmarks that is what people are struggling with according to those out in the field. Gil Hoel supervises about 20 "Project Recovery" crisis counselors who have been fanning out over the region since last August to help disaster victims. The program is administered by Lutheran Social Services and is funded primarily through FEMA.
Hoel said the uncertain nature of the extreme conditions is certainly adding to the anxiousness people feel, but that response is normal.
"When it feels like things are off the charts… that is a normal response to an abnormal event," Hoel said.
Hoel said, in his experience at doing counseling work throughout the country since 2001, he has found that people are extremely resilient, but sometimes they need time.
"There are a wide variety of responses from a can-do attitude to total despair," Hoel said. "But it is important to recognize you may feel different in two weeks. Many times our job is to just stop the action for a little while and take a minute to review and help people remember how they have gotten through things in the past. Most come to the realization they can get through it by themselves, but it doesn't happen in one day. It is a process."
Hoel said he recently had a conversation with a business owner who came to that realization.
"When we started the conversation they said they couldn't continue and they didn't think they would ever reopen," Hoel said. "By the time we were done they could say they were going to get through it."
Hoel said the violent nature of the disaster itself has an impact.
"When you see this beautiful landscape ravaged it can feel like a war zone," Hoel said. "And it takes people out of their comfort zone when things are uncertain. If this was what I believed before and it suddenly changes, it takes time to adapt. There was a saying after 9/11 that we may not be able to get back to normal, but we can find a new normal. It takes a while to settle into a new reality."
In addition, the stresses of having so many aspects of someone's personal life up in the air and so many community decisions to be made can be overwhelming.
"The fault lines are usually there before, but they get wider and all of sudden you can't sleep," Hoel said. "'How am I going to pay the mortgage and do all of this?' Most people with adequate support can figure those things out."
Project Recovery and be reached at 866-422-3742 or on the web at www.lsswis.org
All stories copyright 2006 Vernon Broadcaster and other attributed sources.