Heavy rains lead to widespread flooding in Wisconsin

Record-setting rains in Wisconsin led to life-threatening flash flooding in Milwaukee and the surrounding area overnight Saturday to Sunday, prompting widespread flood alerts and the early closure of the Wisconsin State Fair.

The Milwaukee area received 7.96 inches of rain from Saturday afternoon to Sunday morning, setting a record for a two-day rainfall total in the Milwaukee area, according to the National Weather Service.

More heavy rain was expected into the evening Sunday, forecasters said, and flood warnings remained in effect across Wisconsin. Officials in Milwaukee County declared a state of emergency.

At the Wisconsin State Fair in West Allis, organizers canceled a concert by the band Lynyrd Skynyrd on Saturday night because of severe weather and closed the fairgrounds early.

Videos posted on social media and local news sites showed cars at the fairgrounds partly submerged Saturday night. The fair remained closed Sunday, the final day of its 11-day run, officials said.

The city of Wauwatosa, just north of the fairgrounds in Milwaukee’s western suburbs, was especially hit hard. Parts of downtown were underwater Sunday morning, and a number of residents had to be rescued from flooded basements or vehicles.

Thomas Hipke, 20, said that when he left his job as a server at Leff’s Lucky Town tavern in Wauwatosa at 1 a.m. Sunday, the rain that had been coming down hard for hours seemed to be letting up. “I was like, Oh, maybe it’ll be better,” he recalled thinking before going to sleep.

When local resident Thomas Hipke, 20, woke up, the town was swamped, and his 82-year-old grandmother was caught up in the floods. On her usual morning drive to McDonald’s to get a Diet Coke, Hipke said, she got stuck in surging floodwaters on a bridge over the Menomonee River. Rescue workers navigated a raft to her Chrysler minivan and were able to drive it out of the water to a safe area, where her son picked her up.

Hart Park, a sprawling sports complex along the Menomonee River, was completely underwater Sunday. Police officers used a loudspeaker to disperse a crowd of onlookers, saying that the park and surrounding riverfront were closed.

“I tried to do my morning walk, but it was now a rapids,” said Fran McLaughlin, who lives nearby. She was used to heavy rain and overflowing rivers, but “this is as bad as it probably has ever been,” she said.

The Milwaukee County Office of Emergency Management said Sunday that it had not yet been able to tally the calls for service or to compile a complete damage assessment. But the office noted in a statement that the rain had “overwhelmed local drainage systems” and that “widespread flooding and extensive damage to homes, businesses, roadways, and parks have posed an imminent threat to public safety.” Some homes and businesses in the county were also damaged by lightning during the storm, the office said.

As of Sunday afternoon, there were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries connected to the flooding.

Widespread power outages, flooding and road closures affected at least 19 municipalities across the county, according to Cassandra Libal, the emergency management agency director, in an email.

Reports of water rescues and stranded motorists began overnight Saturday as creeks overflowed, with many spilling across roadways.

Jorge Davila, 26, and a friend were in an Uber car headed home from a night out when floodwaters surged onto the Menomonee River Parkway on the northwest side of town. “We felt the car start swaying with the current,” Davila said. “All of a sudden we realized we were swallowed by the river and could no longer move.”

Gunning the engine got them nowhere, he said, and the water was seeping into the car and still rising, so he and his friend forced their way out into the knee-deep water and started to push. “After what felt like an eternity, we rescued the vehicle, just before the water hit the engine bay,” he said.

Davila recalled feeling sticks, branches and debris hitting his legs as they pushed the car through the fast-moving floodwaters – “maybe not the smartest idea, now that I think about it.”

Continued rain worsens “the ongoing flooding and prolongs the standing water on roads,” Sarah Marquardt, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Milwaukee, said Sunday.

The heaviest rainfall came Saturday, Marquardt said, but periods of rain will continue through Sunday and Monday.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.