Officials hope to ride out flood effects without personal injury
By Ed Nadolski
Editor in Chief
The City of Burlington has imposed curfew for the second straight night between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. as officials continue to deal with the fallout from flooding and a loss of power to much of the city, according to Police Chief Mark Anderson.
Anderson said the curfew Wednesday night was successful and didn’t result in any arrests. He asked for continued cooperation and patience from the community as river water recedes and crews from We Energies work to install temporary transformers that will restore power to areas of the city without electricity. The latest estimate for restoration of power is noon Friday, however, he said, residents should be prepared for the outage to last longer.
The top priority for the emergency management effort, he said, is to make it through the process without injury to residents or emergency workers. Toward that end, members of the Wisconsin National Guard have been visiting homes and apartment buildings in the areas affected by floods and power outages to check on residents. Anderson urged people to check on their neighbors, especially anyone who is elderly or infirm.
City Fire Chief Alan Babe said one resident has voluntarily evacuated, but all others have opted to stay in their homes and monitor the situation. Anderson said water levels on the Fox and White rivers is expected to continue to recede and should drop below high flood stage Saturday morning.
After the water level drops, Babe said, members of the city’s Department of Public Works will assess the areas around the city’s four downtown bridges and determine when it is safe to reopen them. For now, with the city essentially cut in two sectors by the rivers, residents have had to use the bypass highway that circles the area to navigate from one end of the city to the other.
In an effort to ensure residents have the resources they need to deal with the flooding and loss of power, Racine County has established two disaster relief sites in Burlington: See story here.
Anderson acknowledged that the city, business, and residents face a massive and expensive cleanup effort. The lower level of the police station, he said, is full of water that has destroyed the department’s communication equipment. Anderson also has water in his basement at home. However, he said he’s better off than many residents.
Raw video from the 5 p.m. news conference featuring city, county and state officials follows:
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