Lake Delton's Overflow Washes Away Houses and Hurts Tourism (Wisconsin FloodingI)

LAKE DELTON, WI - A 245-acre lake in this resort town overflowed Monday, virtually emptying the lake basin and washing away lakefront homes along with a chunk of the local tourism industry.

Lake Delton, a key part of the Wisconsin Dells tourism area, overflowed about 10 a.m. on Monday morning after two days of rain and was dry by Monday afternoon, said Thomas Diehl, a Lake Delton village trustee.

Water in the manmade lake rose until it was too much for a highway enbankment that was holding it back. The highway washed away as water drained into the nearby Wisconsin River.

Local residents said three lakefront homes floated downstream and disappeared into the water, and the foundations of two other homes were destroyed. Nobody was injured and the homeowners either evacuated or were not there, residents said.

Don Kubenik, 68, burst into tears Monday after seeing the $500,000, 2,800-square foot home he built in 2003 snapped into pieces. The businessman from suburban Milwaukee said he spent every weekend here.

"That house had everything you can imagine and now it's all gone," said Kubenik, who was at his home in West Allis when the lake overflowed. "My boat's gone. The pier's gone. Everything is gone."

Local residents said they feared a large chunk of the local economy was gone, too, after vacationers learn that boating and fishing won't be possible anytime soon. The 20 resorts that line the lake were already reporting customers who were canceling their reservations.

Gov. Jim Doyle called the lake critical to the $1 billion Wisconsin Dells tourism industry and said state workers would try to replenish it as soon as possible. The Department of Natural Resources was trying to figure out how to get the water flowing back within the lake's basin, he said.

"We have really seen the force of Mother Nature here," Doyle said. "At this particular point, we see how really powerful water is."

About 100 people started sandbagging at 2 a.m. Monday, but they could not stop from the highway enbanknment from failing, state and village officials said.

"It's horrible. There's no way we could stop it," Diehl said. "The breach is between 300 and 400 feet wide. The volume (of water) was just so great there wasn't anything anyone could do."

Bill Pettit, who owns the Delton Oaks resort, said an empty lake would be devastating to the local economy. He was already notifying his customers they might want to reconsider their plans.

"We're out of business," Pettit predicted of the 30-unit resort he has owned for 12 years. "What we sell is the lakefront and the lake is gone."

He said he watched as a two-story home was swept away into the water and quickly disappeared. "It didn't float very long," he said.

Lester Makowski, who has owned Aloha Beach Resort and Suites on the lake for 20 years, said he was already losing customers and had no idea what to do about it.

"People stay on the lake to come out with their jet-skis and their boats," he said. "And we don't know when the lake is going to come back."

Doyle said federal and state disaster assistance would be available but homeowners should rely first on private flooding insurance, which Kubenik said he did not have.

Dell Creek Dam on Lake Delton did not fail, said Laurel Steffes, spokeswoman for the state Department of Natural Resources, but state officials worried about other dams that were overflowing or near failure.

A couple thousand people in Columbia County about 30 miles north of Madison were urged to evacuate below the Wyocena and Pardeeville dams, said Pat Beghin, a spokesman for the county's emergency management.

The Wyocena Dam's spillway had washed out, and workers were sandbagging to try to save it, Beghin said. The Pardeeville dam also was overflowing, he said.

The Upper Spring Dam in Palmyra was failing, state emergency management officials said. But only one house in the rural area was in danger, Palmyra town chairman Stewart Calkins said.

The Department of Natural Resources was checking out other dams in western Wisconsin, said Mike Goetzman, a spokesman for Wisconsin Emergency Management. The DNR was flying over dams in Vernon County and sending engineers to other counties -- including Columbia, Dodge, Sauk and Jefferson -- to assess dams there, Goetzman said.

Doyle had declared 30 counties in a state of emergency by noon Monday, and at least 130 inmates from the Department of Corrections were helping sandbag throughout the region.

The Danville River Dam in Danville overtopped on Monday, causing officials to evacuate more than 100 people from an apartment complex, condo building and several homes with airboats, mayor Nancy Osterhaus said. Officials released water from the Fall River dam to keep it from failing, but that exacerbated the flooding already going on, she said.

"They were totally cut off, there was no way to get to them," she said. "Both ends of the street had flooded. We got everybody out of there."

Forecasters expected the rain to stop Monday and possibly return Tuesday, said Jessica Brooks, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in La Crosse. Heavier storms could come Thursday, leading to even more flooding, she said.

Roads throughout the state, including at least 32 state highways, were closed Monday, Goetzman said. A no travel advisory was issued for Crawford, Richland and Vernon counties.

In Vernon County, the damage would likely surpass the $60 million done by floods in August, said Linda Nederlo, spokeswoman for the Vernon County Emergency Operations Center.

Lake Delton Officials Didn't Renew FEMA Flood Insurance Several Homeowners Lost Houses In Lake Flooding

UPDATED: 1:45 pm CDT June 10, 2008

LAKE DELTON, Wis. -- Those property owners who had their homes swept away or destroyed as Lake Delton flooded its banks won't be covered by national flood insurance because the Village of Lake Delton had suspended its participation in the National Flood Insurance Program.

The director of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources' Bureau of Water Management said that the village had been a participating member in the NFIP since 1975, but failed to formally adopt a new floodplain the Federal Emergency Management Agency map in 2001. So the village had its eligibility canceled.

So far, village officials have pointed to a lack of flooding problems in the past as reasons for why the village wasn't signed up for the FEMA flood insurance program.

The program is voluntary and any community can participate and sign up at any time. If a new map comes out, local officials have to formally adopt that new map within six months. However, Lake Delton officials didn't, WISC-TV reported.

The participation issue has enormous consequences for the property owners directly impacted by the catastrophic flooding that occurred at Lake Delton on Monday.

Five homes on the lake were lost or destroyed when the lake burst an earthen embankment and sent parts of homes and assorted debris careening down the nearby Wisconsin River after a new channel was carved through County Highway A, which divides the lake from the river.

Some of the owners of the destroyed homes said that they tried earlier to get flood insurance, but didn't qualify because their village wasn't a participating member of the NFIP.

DNR floodplain management officials said that they have checked with FEMA officials and they have confirmed that the property owners who lost their homes Monday would have qualified for national flood insurance.

Stay tuned to WISC-TV and Channel 3000 for continuing coverage.

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Ducks, Tommy Bartlett Show to resume

Tommy Bartlett stage show to reopen, but not ski show

Mike Ivey — 6/10/2008 2:09 pm

Despite the catastrophic draining of Lake Delton, which will likely preclude any water skiing there this summer, the Tommy Bartlett Show is planning to reopen the onshore stage and sky portions of the show on Thursday.

But the ski show portion of the Tommy Bartlett Show has been canceled indefinitely because all of Lake Delton was drained in a short two-hour period on Monday morning.

That means at least 22 water skiing employees at Tommy Bartlett will be out of work this summer. There are about 150 total employees at one of Wisconsin Dells' most famous attractions.

Workers on Tuesday were busy reinstalling a new sound system that was flooded and continuing to clean up in preparation for a stage-only show.

"The show site itself is fine," said spokeswoman Andrea Novotny. "Other than minor flooding that preceded the big draining event, the show's amphitheater was not damaged."

Novotny said show owner Tom Diehl would be meeting with workers later this week to discuss the summer plans. She said if layoffs are needed at the Tommy Bartlett complex because of the damage, Diehl would try to place any displaced workers in other positions in the Dells.

Tommy Bartlett was also forced to cancel its 55th anniversary show scheduled for next weekend. No makeup date has been set.

Otherwise, many events are continuing as scheduled. The WWII amphibious Original Wisconsin Ducks were hoping to begin tours again on Tuesday. The land-and-water tours were shut down on Monday due to high waters on the Wisconsin River and the draining of Lake Delton.

Elsewhere on Monday, crews were busy clearing the Duck trails of trees that had been felled by storms earlier during the weekend or that had been washed out by water runoff. The hope was to reopen Original Wisconsin Duck tours with a modified route on Tuesday.

Other tours -- the Lower Dells Boat Tour and Jet Boat Adventures, which both operate on the lower Wisconsin River -- were suspended Monday, but both of the tours were open Tuesday.

Upper Dells Boat Tours and Jet Boat Adventure Tours on the Upper Dells (above the main dam on the Wisconsin River, which is upstream from Lake Delton) operated with full tours on Monday and were not affected by the draining event. Upper Dells tours continued as usual on Tuesday.

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