WATER OVER THE DAM - PT. IV

The great Kickapoo River Flood of 1978 was the culmination of a very wet spring season that continued into June.  That month, weekend storms seemed to keep the river at or near flood stage every weekend, thwarting the attempts of tourists to canoe on the river.  At the end of the month the tipping point was reached. Here is how I described that flood in volume II of my history of La Farge (page 214).

            On the evening of Friday, June 30^th, a series of heavy thunderstorms swept through the Kickapoo Valley.  During the evening, the National Weather Service issued a flood alert for the Kickapoo River and surrounding streams.  The Vernon County Sheriff’s Department mobilized efforts to move everyone away from flooding streams.  The La Farge Fire Department was called out during the night to look for canoeists who were camped along the river south of Rockton.  Later, the power went off in the village and firemen helped people with emergency power for sump pumps to keep water out of basements.

            By the morning of July 1, reports from communities upriver from La Farge warned of high floodwaters on the way.  Norwalk, Wilton and Ontario were all deluged with floodwaters and all of it was headed fro La Farge and other communities downstream.  North of Rockton, the waters of the flooding Kickapoo were almost over the 10-foot high railings of Bridge #10 that spanned the river. By late morning on Saturday, July 1, the flooding Kickapoo began to spill into La Farge.  Employees and volunteer work crews worked at Nuzum’s, Jeffer’s Truck Sales, and the cheese factory to get merchandise to higher ground. Volunteers and members of the fire department began to move furniture and other belongings out of the houses south of Main Street.  A caravan of volunteers in trucks and boats moved people out of their houses on Mill, Pearl, Gold, Silver and Snow Streets.  All of the trucks of the fire department as well as the ambulance were moved away from the firehouse on south Silver Street to higher ground.  Some of the trucks were kept at C&S Motors and a couple others were eventually driven over to the Major farm on Otter Creek, so the department could respond on the west side of the river.

            By mid-afternoon the waters of the Kickapoo had advanced up Main Street to crest between the post office and the Co-op Gas Station.  All events of the opening day of the 4^thof July Celebration were cancelled, but many people still came to La Farge for the events – many unaware of the devastating flood.  Others, however, cam to see the floodwaters and by late afternoon the village was jammed with people.  Sandwiches that had been made for the celebration were donated to feed the many volunteers, firemen and policemen helping with the flood.  Red Cross officials came to the village by nightfall and they arranged for meals to be served at Kennedy’s Restaurant for people displaced by the floodwaters.  Sleeping bags were placed in the school gymnasium and people with no place to stay could reside there until the floodwaters abated.  Others stayed in the KP Hall overnight as they waited to return to their flooded homes.

            The waters started to recede late in the day on July 1^st, but then an intense storm pummeled the La Farge area in the evening.  The storm had spawned several tornadoes in the Viroqua area and La Farge received nearly two-inches of rain.  The storm caused more severe flooding on Bear Creek, Otter Creek, and Weister Creek and caused the Kickapoo to again rise to former high levels during the night.  From Friday evening June 30^ththrough Sunday morning, July 2^nd, 6.15 inches of rain was measured in La Farge.

            By the morning of Sunday, July 2^ndthe waters of the Kickapoo at La Farge had begun its recession down Main Street and back towards the river’s banks.  The floodwaters had crested at 14.92 feet, the greatest water level ever recorded at the gauging station located on the bridge west of Nuzum’s.  12,900 cubic feet of water per second was rushing through the village at the peak of the crest, another apex never recorded before.  (Many of the older generation compared the great Flood of 1978 to that of the one in 1935, but the gauging station at La Farge was not in operation at that time of the Flood of 1935, so an official comparison was not available.)

            It is interesting to note that the gauging station at La Farge was installed because of the flood of 1935.  When the Corps of Engineers did their preliminary flood control studies of the Kickapoo Watershed beginning in 1938, one of their initial recommendations was for gauging stations to be placed along the river to measure its flow.  The stations were installed at La Farge and Gays Mills soon after that initial Corps study. Let’s now return to my account in volume II of that 1978 flood at La Farge.

            In La Farge, the houses that had floodwater in them (Some for the first time ever) included Gerald Anderson, Stanley Potter, Elmer Storer, Catherine Norris, Eva Clements, John Sokolik, Bob Sokolik, Ron Gabrielson (renting the JaDoul house), Reynold Waddell, Jim Campton, Gib Stevens, Ethel Burt, Maxine Kennedy, Bob Erickson, Lucille Yarolimek, Vera Campton, Bob Jacobson, and Leslie Gillett.

            Business places in La Farge that were inundated with the floodwaters included the La Farge Cheese Factory, Nuzum’s, Gary’s Texaco Station, Caucutt-Olson Plumbing, La Farge Epitaph newspaper, Jeffer’s Truck Sales, Kickapoo Antiques, and Nelson’s Garage.  Also suffering damage from the flood were the Town of Stark hall and shed, the La Farge jail, and the new village hall and firehouse.

            The school’s bus garage, located on Main Street in the old Fulmer’s Garage building suffered heavy damage.

            Floodwaters kept area roads and highways closed for days.  Water covered the old portion of Highway 131 at Seelyburg for nearly two days and caused major damage to the road.  Highway 131 south of La Farge was closed for two days and almost one hundred yards of the highway were washed out below the new bridge at Lawton’s.  In addition the sewer plant at Seelyburg was inoperable for more than 24 hours at the height of the flood and raw sewage was dumped directly into the river’s waters. Many people boiled village water for drinking during the flood, but a DNR check on the village’s water supply on July 5^thindicated there was no contamination.

            Governor Martin Schreiber had declared much of southwestern Wisconsin, including the Kickapoo Valley, a disaster area because of the flooding.  (President Carter soon followed with his own disaster declaration, freeing up federal funds for flood relief.)  The move by Governor Schreiber allowed for state and federal assistance to reach those affected by the floods more quickly. Within a week of the flood, representatives from HUD and the Governor’s office were in La Farge to assess the damages. A list compiled by Village President Ted Erickson indicated that 38 residences, 23 businesses and several municipal facilities in La Farge had damages from the flood.  An initial estimate total of $200,000 in damages to La Farge residences, businesses, and streets was compiled.  That total did not include any of the damages to farm operations within the village.

            It is important to remember that a nearly completed flood control dam lay north of La Farge during that epic Kickapoo River Flood of 1978.  Originally scheduled to be completed two years before the flood, construction on the unfinished dam had been delayed for nearly four years.  It is interesting to notice how the Corps of Engineers assessed that 1978 flood on the Kickapoo River.  Again, I will return to volume II, page 219.

            Later, the Corps of Engineers came up with very different numbers for the impact of a completed dam on the flood.  Corps estimates on the total damages from the flood to Vernon, Richland and Crawford Counties was $20-million.  An additional $7-million in damages occurred in Monroe County, but those damages would not have been affected by a dam at La Farge.  However, the Corps estimated that with a completed dam at La Farge and the accompanying levee systems at Soldiers Grove and Gays Mills, 80% of the flood damages to Kickapoo towns would have been avoided.  With only the dam in place and with no downstream levees, the Corps still predicted a decrease of 63% in flood damages. 

            Wow, 80% less damages with a completed dam at La Farge!  It blows one’s mind to think that those kinds of numbers still created no impetus for the politicians to finish the dam project. As Bob Faw said on his TV news story about the La Farge dam project that was shown on the “CBS Evening News” on October 13, 1978, “An unfinished dam stops no flood waters”. 

Water Over The Dam - Part II

The great Kickapoo River flood of 2018 began on the evening of Monday, August 27^th, when torrential rains inundated an area from Coon Valley to Hillsboro.  Rainfall totals for that evening exceeded a foot in the Cashton, Ontario and Wilton areas.  In La Farge over five inches fell.  During that first night, the northern Kickapoo Valley communities were hit with record setting flood heights.  Most of the downtown Ontario business district was under 5 to 10 feet of water before daybreak.

            By 4 am on Tuesday, August 28^th, word had been received in La Farge of the record setting water that was approaching from upriver.  An army of workers and volunteers began to move what could be saved from the businesses along west Main Street nearest the river.  By daylight the river was out of its banks, crossing the old Highway 131 at Seelyburg and plowing its way toward the village with alarming speed and power. By mid-morning, the Kickapoo River stretched from the bridge west of Nuzum’s all the way to the gas pumps at the Zzip Stop.  And the water kept rising.

            That afternoon over five inches of rain fell in less than three hours in the La Farge area.  The downpour set off a massive flood on area creeks and streams. As the rising waters of Bear and Otter Creeks came careening into La Farge that afternoon, it encountered the already record flood heights of the swollen Kickapoo and had nowhere to go. The water kept rising and by nightfall, the flood crest had breached the drive-thru of the post office – a never before seen height.  Water from a backed up Bear Creek was running west down Snow Street and into the river near the motel.  On the other end of the village, the waters of Bear Creek nearly reached the parking lot of the new EMT Building.

            Rescuing people from their houses was a top priority after the afternoon deluge.  DNR wardens brought a boat to the village and went door to door rescuing people and their pets from their flooded houses and getting them to high ground.  (Check out the rescue video posted on the WKBT – Channel 8 in LaCrosse website of those DNR wardens rescuing people in La Farge that day.  It is mesmerizing to watch – the definition of heroism in many respects.)  

            It took nearly all of Wednesday, August 29^thfor the flood waters to leave Main Street in La Farge.  Highway 131 was closed in both directions from the village. To the north, the road had washouts at Bridges 10, 9, 7 and three different locations at Bridge 2 on the northern end of Ferris Flat.  To the south, the river’s floodwaters covered the highway below Tunnelville at Lawton’s and would eventually wash out part of the road there.  Highway 82 through La Farge finally opened for traffic on that evening.

            The flood’s height for La Farge measured at the official measuring station at the bridge next to Nuzum’s was 19.42 feet.  That height eclipsed the previous high water mark in La Farge (set by the 2008 flood) by nearly three and a half feet! By the way, that measuring station was always operating during the flood even though the station did quit sending out information via satellite.  When Lyle Dorscheid, the local gauge reader and the National Weather Service crew checked the gauging station after the floodwater finally went down, they verified that it had always been recording the river’s depth.  What the station could not record was the torrents of water entering the river via Otter and Bear Creeks south of the gauge.

            The power was out in La Farge for most of three days as the village’s generating station on south Silver Street was overcome with the high floodwaters.  The electric power ceased to be at noon on that Tuesday and did not return until mid-afternoon on Thursday, August 30^th.  Down river, the Kickapoo inundated Viola, Readstown, Soldiers Grove, Gays Mills and Steuben as its waters raced to join the Wisconsin River.  Almost every village set high water marks, just as La Farge had, with some areas noting water levels nearly five feet higher than any ever recorded previously.

            The record floodwater levels meant lots of damages to several businesses in La Farge.  They included Nuzum’s, the Organic Valley retail store in the old cheese factory, the La Farge Truck Center and Car Wash, Don Potter Realty, the Zzip Stop, Ewetopia, the Premier Co-op, The La Farge Dental Clinic and the La Farge Motel. Water even seeped into the north end of the new clinic on north Mill Street that had been constructed at an elevation level three feet above the previous highest flood.

            In addition, twenty-one La Farge residences had floodwater damage.  All of the houses on Snow Street, eleven in all, suffered extensive flood damage. Many of those houses had been elevated since previous floods, but still had water damage due to the record flood crest. Six houses on south State Street, several that had never had floodwater previously, were flooded this time.  Some of the houses can be repaired and made livable again, but many cannot be fixed.

            By Friday, August 31^st, the water had finally receded from Plum Run Road (old Hwy 131) at Seelyburg.  Massive clean up continued in the village.  The Zzip Stop was selling gas by that day after having the gas pumps cleaned and inspected.  Dumpsters were everywhere in the floodway of the village, stretching the length of Snow Street and beyond.  The water had been so high in the motel that all of the rooms had to be gutted.  Dumpsters piled high with flood debris stood beside the motel, Zzip Stop, Ewetopia and other Main Street businesses.  Rental houses on Main Street were damaged too badly to allow the tenants to return.

            The sidewalk outside of the Kickapoo Haven served as a meal site while the power was out during the beginning of the cleanup. Meals were served at noon and in the early evening every day through that Friday, August 31^st.   Volunteers, flood victims and those who needed a meal were fed with food donated and made by the Rockton Bar, the La Farge Food Pantry, both La Farge restaurants – Brosi’s and Phil & Deb’s, Bergum’s Grocery, and the Zzip Stop.  The La Farge Fire Department personnel was on call for the entire week helping with rescues, pumping out basements and doing what ever needed to be done to help the people of the community.

            Flood relief supplies were available at both churches in La Farge and the United Methodist Church was soon filled with clothes, food, and other necessities for those that had been flooded out.  The La Farge UM church is scheduled to be open as a flood relief center until the end of the first week of October.   The La Farge Food Pantry, under the leadership of Pastor Mark Phillips, was providing housing and money for those displaced by the flood.  A week after the last floodwaters had subsided, Pastor Mark was still busy finding places for people to live and providing relief in many other ways. Several families displaced by the flood moved into campers parked in the La Farge Village Park.

            By the weekend, the weather had settled down and the river was back in its banks.  Then early Sunday morning, September 2^nd, it started raining again.  It rained again on Sunday and several times on Monday, Labor Day.  Another nearly six inches of rain fell in three days and the Kickapoo rose rapidly again. By Tuesday, September 4^th, the floodwaters of the Kickapoo River had covered old Hwy 131 at Seelyburg again.  By that evening the river’s water was over Hwy 82 at Nuzum’s and over Mill Street again near the new clinic.  Most of the floodwater had receded by the next day, September 6^th, but Plum Run Road at Seelyburg remained under water for another day.  South Mill Street, south Silver Street and Pearl Street on the far southern end of the village were closed for nearly two weeks straight due to high water.

            So where does La Farge go after such a catastrophic flood?  How many people and businesses will leave?  What lays ahead for this Kickapoo River town?  What will be the reaction to this historic flood?

KICKAPOO WILDLIFE REVISITED

One of the things that I find interesting in this little local history project is the ability to do updates on stories about which I have previously written.  In April of 2011 I wrote a column titled “Kickapoo Wildlife” in which I presented changes in the local populations of animals and birds in the past fifty years.  In that column I wrote about the abundance of deer and turkey in the Kickapoo Valley compared to a half century before.  I also mentioned how the geese and cranes were hanging out on our ponds along Bear Creek, something else that was not common fifty years earlier.  Perhaps it is time to take another look at Kickapoo wildlife.

            The first six months of 2018 seemed to abound with new and unusual sightings of local fauna that were both odd and interesting. Taken from an historical perspective, most of the instances reinforced my previous thoughts on the changes that have taken place in the Kickapoo Valley in regards to wildlife.

            While driving home on a late afternoon in January, an elk jumped in front of our car near Bridge #10 between La Farge and Ontario. I had just crossed Ferris Flat, heading south and saw what I thought was a deer on the hill beside the road.  I slowed down anticipating the animal jumping onto the road.  Sure enough, what I thought was a big Whitetail, jumped the fence, landing right in the middle of the road in front of me.  When I got a closer look at the animal’s rear end, I realized that it was an elk.  It lumbered across the road and headed north down towards the Kickapoo River below.

            Earlier that month, an elk had been seen running along Bear Creek south of our house.  The elk had escaped from a nearby game farm.  I thought that the elk that jumped in front of us that day was probably the same one.  Later I would learn that the elk that we saw between Ontario and La Farge was from the DNR managed herd of elk released in the Black River Falls area.  Two elks in the area in one month – that is a rarity indeed.

            Speaking of rarities, I should backtrack to the summer of 2017 when an unusual bird sighting occurred at our place.  My wife, Carolyn, is an active bird feeder with several continually stocked bird feeders in operation at our Bear Creek home. This food extravaganza attracts a wide variety of species of birds to our place.  Last summer, we were surprised when this funny looking small robin started feeding behind our house.  I soon realized it wasn’t a robin, but instead a large flycatcher species called Say’s Phoebe.  The Say’s Phoebe is a species mainly of the Great Plains and is rarely seen in Wisconsin. I learned that earlier in the summer of 2017, a pair of the species was seen in the Middleton area.  Perhaps the pair at our house later in the summer was the same ones seen there.  The birds stayed about a month before moving on.  They have not returned this summer, but many other birds have showed up here.

            Our Spring/Winter/Spring/Winter/Spring weather that we had in April seemed to slow all of the water birds return to our ponds. Finally around May 9^th, we saw a family of geese walking in our driveway.  There were two adults, which I named Gus and Gertie, and their four little chicks.  The springtime was very wet this year, so I think the geese came up on the driveway to find a dry place to hang out.  They would walk all the way up the driveway and waddle around in our lower lawn.  It was interesting watching the chicks grow, seeming to get taller and more goose-like each day.

            Pure cacophony broke out at our place on the evening of May 14^th.  Seven Canadian geese decided to drop in on the ponds for a visit and Gus & Gertie were not happy.  The squawking over territorial pond rights was deafening and even increased when two Sand Hill Cranes descended onto the far pond.  Carolyn even tried to walk down to the ponds to arbitrate the situation, fearing the little ones would be driven off.  Her trip was to no avail, but eventually Gus & Gertie prevailed. 

            The family of Canadian Geese continued to walk in our driveway for over a month.  The last time we saw the clan, the chicks were nearly fully-grown and we suspect the group flew off soon after that.  The geese would be replaced in late June by a family of cranes.  Again, because it was so wet in the lowlands around our ponds, we think the cranes were seeking the driveway for dryness.

            We have had Sand Hill’s nest on our ponds before and have often seen the little ones in our pastures and yard.  This year, during the annual Crane Count in late April (which was iced and snowed out from the original weekend), we saw a crane on the far pond, but never a nesting pair.  We heard crane calls every morning indicating they were nesting nearby, so they could have been nesting along the little rill that runs to the west of the ponds.

            What was different about this year’s crane family was that they were staked out at a place right next to the driveway and close to Highway 82.  When I would drive down the driveway, one or both of the cranes would fly right in front of the vehicle, trying to protect the two little chicks.  Sometimes, the adult cranes would fly across the state highway, further endangering all concerned.  Another difference in this year’s crane family from previous years was that the chicks were very young – small little bundles of yellow fuzz waddling around the edge of the driveway.  Usually the chicks are much larger when we see them, but I think the wet conditions caused the move off their nest.  After a few days of this tenuous situation, the whole crane family moved across the highway and hung around some high ground besides Bear Creek. For another week, we observed the cranes walking in the fields by the creek, before they moved on. 

            We have had a gravel driveway for the entire forty years that we have lived on Bear Creek.  Since we have the gravel, we usually have Killdeer around, because they like to lay their eggs in the substance.  A few years ago, the Killdeer laid four big eggs right in the middle of the driveway, out of the tire tracks.  We marked the nest, which amounted to no more that a little hole scratched out of the gravel, so I wouldn’t run over it with the riding mower.  As we drove down the driveway, the adult Killdeer would run ahead of us, luring us away from their eggs.  Occasionally, one of the adult birds would play the old “broken wing card” to entice us away from the eggs.  

            Some years, the Killdeer eggs hatch, while other times the raccoons and other nighttime predators destroy the eggs before they hatch. This year, perhaps because of the wet conditions, the Killdeer made their driveway nest on higher ground, between the barn and the house.  We saw four big eggs in the nest-hole and the two adult Killdeer were busy luring us away from the nest as we drove on our driveway.  One of the adult birds would sit on the eggs during the day, to shelter them from the heat of the sunshine.  As we buzzed past with the mowers, the adult would try to lure us away. Finally, they grew used to our mowing practices and stayed on the nest as we trimmed the lawn on either side.

            We never did see little Killdeer chicks this year – I don’t know where they go when they hatch – but the eggs in the nest decreased from four to two and then to only one in a period of ten days or so.  The older birds abandoned the last egg; I ended up placing it over into the pasture after waiting a week or so with nothing happening.

            With our ponds, we also have a healthy turtle population at our place.  When the turtles are seeking higher ground to lay eggs, this can some times be a problem if they try to cross Highway 82.  One Snapping Turtle and one Box Turtle did not make the crossing of the busy state highway successfully this spring, but several others did survive. Wood Turtles seem to be increasing in our area now, probably due to the increasing amount of habitat.

            That increased wildlife habitat, especially north of La Farge on the Kickapoo Valley Reserve, played out in a strange way in late April.  A turkey hunter was walking to his hunting site on the ridge near Bridge #10 when he spied a Black Bear laying next to a little stream that runs into the Kickapoo River.  The hunter did not want to encounter the bear so he continued on to his hunting site. At the end of the morning when the hunter was heading back to his car, he noticed the bear still lying next to the creek.  He notified the authorities about the bear siting and the KVR personnel found the bear near death.  It died by the next day and the animal had apparently been struck by lightning during a big thunderstorm that occurred in the area the night before it was first seen. When the animal was gutted out, black singe marks were observed on several of the bear’s organs, indicating a possible lightning strike.  It was believed that the bear had hibernated on the Reserve last winter.

            At least, we don’t have hibernating bears on our place here on Bear Creek yet.  Or do we? After all, there is a reason the creek has that name. 

The Great Kickapoo River Flood of 1978 - Part 1

The Kickapoo River flood of June 30 – July 2, 1978 was the greatest ever recorded at La Farge up to that time.  The high water mark happened on Saturday, July 1 as the depth of the Kickapoo reached 14.92 feet, nearly three feet over the river’s flood stage of 12 feet.  At its height, the flood poured 12,900 cubic feet of water per second through La Farge – another all-time record.  The 6.15 inches of rain that fell in torrents beginning Friday evening, June 30^th and continuing through Sunday morning was the final impetus to unleash the havoc of the Kickapoo’s greatest flood.  Meteorological and political events leading up to the great flood framed the significance of the damage to the Kickapoo Valley in a special way.

            As was usual for that time, the record setting Kickapoo River Flood of 1978 once again splashed La Farge and the failed fiasco of the federal dam project back onto the national scene, culminating with the appearance of several local citizens on an October airing of the CBS Evening News.

            Most of the great floods of the Kickapoo Valley watershed are often a culmination of a series of weather patterns and the Flood of 1978 was no exception.  A wet autumn in 1977 had culminated in flash flooding along several La Farge area streams at the end of October.  With Otter Creek, Bear Creek, Elk Run and Camp Creek all flooding that fall, the Kickapoo River was soon out of its banks from La Farge and down river.

            Heavy snows in late November 1977 had been the beginning of a winter that featured heavy snowfall totals that continued for several months.  A big snowstorm in early January 1978 dumped over a foot of snow in some parts of the Kickapoo Valley.  Snow totals were above average for February and by March the heavy ice accumulation on the Kickapoo River at La Farge had barely started to melt.  The National Weather Service (NWS) predicted floods for the Kickapoo Valley from the melting of the snowpack later in March.  Although the river was out of its banks on several occasions, the spring flooding of the Kickapoo was moderated by an even snowmelt and less than normal rainfall.

            A week of rains in late April brought the river out of its banks for several days and filled all of the sloughs, swamps and other wetlands along the river.  In June, it seemed that there were major rainstorms every weekend and the river was usually out of its banks.  Weekend canoeing on the Kickapoo was a washout for most of the month.  For the two weeks before the big flood at the end of June, the Kickapoo River remained bank full or higher.  With nowhere for any excess water to go, the massive storms of June-July generated rainfall totals to trigger the greatest flood in the history of the river.

            The great flood arrived just as the community of La Farge was set to commence a four-day celebration of America’s Independence Day.  The 4^th of July Celebration, sponsored by the La Farge Lions Club, was to offer a variety of events and activities for all ages.  In an effort to draw some of the 4^th of July crowds back to the Village Park, where they had traditionally been held, the Lions Club rented a large tent to cover the Village Park Bowery.  (At the time, there was no permanent shelter over the bowery that consisted of a large pad of cement for dancing.)  The Lions Club had scheduled several dances and a fashion show to be held under the big tent during the celebration.

            On Friday evening, June 30^th, many people were at the 4^th of July grounds setting things up for the celebration.  A thunderstorm with heavy rain went through early in the evening and another a few hours later.  I had helped set up the big tent in the park earlier in the afternoon and had been instructed by the installation crew to drop the side poles to let water drain off the canopy if there was heavy rain.  When another heavy rain hit La Farge before midnight, I made my third trip to the Village Park to drain the water from the tent.

            Another heavy rainstorm hit the Kickapoo Valley after 2 a.m. and I was back to the park once again.  We were living in the Burt Apartments next to the motel in that summer of 1978 and when I returned home I noticed a group assembled at the nearby firehouse.  The La Farge Fire Dept. was assembling crews to search for canoeists who were camping along the river south of Rockton.  The NWS had already issued a flood alert for the Kickapoo Valley and the Vernon County Sheriff’s Department was moving everyone away from soon-to-be flooding streams and rivers.  I stumbled home to try to get some sleep before another storm came through.

            Early the next morning (Saturday, July 1^st) a knocking at the door woke us from our short night’s slumber.  Fellow Lions Club member Brent Waddell had just driven in from Fairview Ridge and said that he had never seen the water on Otter Creek so high.  Brent was one of the Lions’ members in charge of the tractor and 4-wheel drive pull to be held later that day.  The pulling eliminator for the event was to be rented from a business in Norwalk and Brent wasn’t sure if the pull could be held with the looming flood threat.  When he called the Norwalk business about the eliminator, he found that Norwalk had suffered a terrible flash flood overnight and the eliminator had been washed away along with several other vehicles kept on the property.  The pulling event was definitely off for that day.

            We decided to drive north to see how high the water was at Rockton.  As we were crossing the Jug Creek Bridge, we saw Ole Gabrielson walking towards the highway from the river.  Ole had walked down to look at the river at Bridge 12 and saw the floodwaters form a cap on the river before rushing over the banks.  He was soaked nearly from head to toe and he told us that the waters on the Kickapoo River had come over the bank so fast that they overtook him as he scrambled to higher ground.  Behind him, we could see the mouth of Jug Creek rapidly filling up with floodwater.

            When we continued on upriver and crossed the new Highway 131 Bridge at Rockton, we could see nothing but water below us.  We stopped into the Rockton Bar and asked owner Dean Hamilton how bad the flooding was.  Dean told us to drive up the river and look at the bridge above Rockton.  As we descended the hill towards the bridge we were amazed at what we saw.  The bridge (Bridge #10 today) had railings on both sides that reached nearly ten feet above the roadbed.  On that morning less that a foot of the railings remained above the swollen river’s waters – nearly eight feet of water was flowing above the bridge!  Shaken, Brent and I hurried back toward La Farge.

            When we returned to La Farge, we saw that Andrew’s flat was rapidly filling with water next to the river.  We stopped at Nuzum’s and helped with the efforts there to move merchandise and material to higher spots in the building to avoid approaching flood waters.  Items were carried upstairs in the Nuzum’s shed and after an hour or so; most of the work was done.  The floodwater was just beginning to cross Highway 82 between Nuzum’s and the river, so Brent and I headed up Main Street to help at other businesses.  When we arrived at Jeffers Truck Sales, it dawned on us that my apartment was in the path of the flood and quickly drove there.  Carolyn was in full flood-mode and had moved the vehicles to higher ground as the front yard was filling up with water.  She came out the front door with our little Chihuahua, Tinker, in her arms.  Carolyn’s parents came from Viola to help, but soon had to head over the hills and back downriver as the flood moved downstream to their hometown.  They took little Tinker with them and the friendly little dog got to hang out in Viola for a couple days with other flood refugees from that river town.

As we were beginning to put things up, Dean and Rudy Hamilton arrived with pickups and a crew of helpers, offering to move our things to higher ground.  They had already secured several garages and sheds in town where the material could be kept, so the process began immediately to move everything out of the apartment and truck it off for storage.  When our apartment was done, we started on the apartment next door.  Then it was over to Burt’s house, Maxine Kennedy’s, Earl Geddes’ place and on down Snow Street. 

            Other trucks and then boats helped in the moving of items, to the upstairs in some houses and off to the storage garages in others.  When we got to Harry Lounsbury’s house, some concerns arose as nobody had seen Harry anywhere that morning.  Dode Erlandson and I warily entered the house to check on him, but Harry was away from his home, safe out of the flood’s way.

            The floodwaters continued up Main Street all the rest of that day, until finally stopping between the La Farge Co-op gas station and the old post office building.  The water started to recede a little later in the afternoon, but another torrential thunderstorm came through in the early evening.  That storm caused even worse flooding on Bear Creek, and the floodwaters in La Farge stayed at near record levels through most of the night.  (Ironically, the floodwaters never did enter our apartment, although reaching right to the doorsill on a couple of occasions.)

Saturation Point!

During September, the Kickapoo Valley was awash in floodwaters.  It was not a record-setter like we had back in 2008, but it was a significant flooding event for the Valley.  If one watched the weather patterns over the last few months, this flood in the fall season could almost be anticipated.  The Kickapoo Valley has a saturation point and once that is attained, then flooding is almost sure to follow.

            The flood of September 22-24, 2016 reached a height of a little over 14 feet as recorded at the measuring station on the Kickapoo River at La Farge.  This is almost two feet below the record setting flood of June 2008, but it still qualifies as a “100-Year Flood” according to the flood measuring system adopted by the Corps of Engineers.  Now, we must remember that the “100-Year Flood” label does not mean that type of severe flood comes along every century or so.  What the designation does define is that type of severe flooding has a 1% chance of occurring on a yearly basis.  Clear as the muddy waters of the Kickapoo, right?

We need to back up a few months to see how this all set up for the Valley’s saturation point to be reached.  That term “saturation point” has been in the state news a lot in the past few weeks.  After the heavy rains in southern Wisconsin of this past September, the National Weather Service office out of Madison has released figures to show that water saturation is at record levels in area topsoil.  Although these measurements have only been kept since 1995, the September 2016 figures are record setters for the month and some of the top saturation levels ever recorded.  Here in the Kickapoo Valley, those record saturation levels have been quite apparent for a while.

Here at our place on Bear Creek, there is a field next to the highway that is jokingly referred to as a hay field.  Filled with weeds and marsh grasses, the field has relinquished several big bales of “horse hay” to cousin, Mike Steinmetz, over the past several years.  Mike even has baled up two cuttings of the marshy mixture in the good dry years.  “Good years” are the ones when it is dry enough to get the hay machines on the field to get the hay crop harvested.  This has not been a good year.

I talked to Mike about possibly baling up the marsh hay before the 4^th of July.  It was a little wet then from several heavy rains in June, so the harvest was delayed some.  That was really not a good idea, as it seemed to rain every other day in July.  Meanwhile the weeds in the field soared to the sky as the harvest was delayed – a bumper crop of Yellow Rocket, Wild Parsnip and Globe Plant.  Finally, on July 25^th, Mike cut the “hay” in the field.  When he was done driving through the marshy morass of muck, he told me that I should grow cranberries in the field next year.  He waited a week for the cut grass to dry out.  It never did.  As he baled up the soggy mass of weeds and grasses, water was spewing from the baler.  Saturation point had been attained – and that was on August 1^st.

The month of August was another rainy one, with some type of rain on nearly half the days – precipitation was much above average for the month.  Then came the real rains of September.

There was 4.25” of rain on September 6-7, another inch on the 9^th, another couple of inches in the week of September 12^th thru the 16^th, on the 19^th we had a rain shower with hail just for a little change, and then to make things really interesting, we had 6.25” of the wet stuff during the week of September 19^th thru the 25^th.  Although we are on the last day of the month as I’m writing this and it looks rainy, September’s rains will total in the 14-15” range – record setting for the month.  And that was AFTER the heavier than normal rains of the previous three months had put the Kickapoo Valley at the dreaded SATURATION POINT!

There was a “Preview of Coming Attractions” for us back after those early torrential rains the first week of September.  The creeks were out of the banks everywhere and Bear Creek went over Highway 131 at the bridge on the south end of town.  That day, September 7^th, was also the day that La Farge hosted a regional conference on development of small towns.  Government officials from though out southern Wisconsin descended on the village for the forum.  I gave a little history bus tour of the town that morning, prior to the forum’s beginning session.  As I herded several dozen people onto the bus in a pouring rain, some mentioned that they had gone through floodwaters that morning to get to La Farge.  Then they boarded a bus with the name “TITANIC” on the side!  When I told them that only special town tours of La Farge included a Kickapoo Valley flood while on board a TITANIC bus, some failed to see the humor in the morning’s situation.

Face Book and IPhones give a whole new perspective to Kickapoo Valley floods.  The photos are much more plentiful and the news travels much faster on a personal level.  The photo of Ken Choninger’s car buried in a washout hole at the bridge in Valley went viral on social media.  Scenes of washed out driveways taken from many different vantage points has an eerie end-of-the-world quality to them.  People who once lived in the Kickapoo Valley, but who now are high and dry in more secure locations, sent frantic messages wondering if everything had been washed away.

 Truth be told, it was a rather run-of-the-mill flood by old time standards.  Yes, the water went across Highway 82 between Nuzum’s and the cheese factory like it always does.  Andrews Flat filled up with the overflow floodwaters of the river and some of it flowed down Mill Street past the new clinic.  The water did run over old Highway 131 at Seelyburg for a couple of days.

But there were NOT any logs floating along Main Street like in 1907, 1935 and 2008.  As a matter of fact, we do not have any sawmill in town any more for the logs to float out of.  The edge of the floodwaters did not edge up to the parking lot of the Co-op like in the really big ones of the past.  It was not a “GREAT” Kickapoo River flood in La Farge although it was much more of a river-flooding event downstream in Viola, Readstown and Gays Mills.  Another reason that this year’s flood had less of an impact on La Farge was that over twenty former residences in town are no longer in the path of the floodwaters.  Those houses located in La Farge that used to sit in the floods’ path were bought out using FEMA and DNR funds after the 2008 flood.  Most were razed and hauled away to the landfill.

Another lively discussion that took place about the flood, concerned the Corps’ dam located north of La Farge.  If the dam had been finished, would it have curtailed the effects of the flood?  OF COURSE IT WOULD HAVE!  The main purpose of that federal project was to control floodwaters in the Kickapoo Valley.  It would have held back the floodwaters coming down from Ontario and that would have meant less flooding for La Farge, Viola and Readstown.  Remember that part of the La Farge dam project also included levy systems to protect the villages of Soldiers Grove and Gays Mills.  If those had been completed and the six retention dams had been built north of La Farge, also part of the federal project, the flood of September 2016 might have been looked at with yawning indifference.  But the big dam at La Farge, the down-river levy systems and the up-river retention dams never were built, so now we just keep backing away from the rising floodwaters.

Quoting from Volume 1 of my history book about La Farge, one resident who had barely survived the great flood of 1935 said, “I will never sleep in that house again.  Get me away from that damn river!”

TRANSITION

If you look closely, you can imagine the old road as it wound around the boggy bottom of Jordan Flat.  (For you youngsters reading along; that’s pronounced Jerdin Flat and not Jordan as in Michael Jordan.)  There still a few clues left to direct you along the way of the old road.  There next to the highway, you can see the crumbling remains of an old bridge support that crossed the rill leading down to Bear Creek.  Further along, the old road bends around a sandstone outcropping where some of the original rock base of the road is visible.  There is a cut in a little hillock as the road rises up the hill and to the east, another one where the old road curved over toward the Baptist Church and then descended back to the present highway.

            For the most part, the land has taken away any visual clues of where the old road went to avoid the morass of Jordan Flat.  (It was said that the best time to cross that stretch of road leading from the east into La Farge was in the winter.  During that season, the swamp would freeze up so that sleighs and drays could negotiate the flat without becoming mired down in the muck.  Any other season would be tough slogging through the boggy bottomland next to Bear Creek.  Ruts were worn so deep in the road’s muck that the axles of wagons and eventually cars would hang up and become stuck.  Whoever lived on the Jordan farm had a steady job of using their team of horses to pull people across the flat during the wet stretches.)  The transition to farming fields and pastures has erased most of the features of the former use as a road.  The old road that avoided the swampy lowland one hundred and twenty years ago has nearly disappeared.

            Around that same time so many years ago, another road branched off this old road and meandered up a little valley before ascending on a steep climb up to Maple Ridge located to the north.  I remember as a youngster walking along this old road as it rose toward the ridge top.  I was looking for mushrooms and spent most of my time looking down instead of up toward where the old road was leading me.  The climb became steeper and steeper and I remember turning to look down the valley, back to where I had been.  This was nearly sixty years ago, so the old road was still quite evident, since it was still being used as a farm road at the time.  But it hadn’t been used as a regular road for wagons and buggies for probably fifty years.  The steep ascent up to the ridge on nearby French Hill Road had apparently won out as a preferable road from valley to ridge fifty years before my walk.  So this old road was abandoned as a thoroughfare of sorts, but was still evident on my mushroom walk back in the 1950s.  Most of that area has transitioned back to forest today.  Down in the valley, where the springs bubble up, you can still see where the old road leading to the ridge cut through the end of a little hill.

            They were called “Lucey’s Trees”.  The pine trees were planted by the state DNR back in the early 1970s as part of Governor Patrick Lucey’s approval process for the federal dam and lake project at La Farge.  If you remember, after the Corps of Engineer’s La Farge project was well underway, Lucey ordered a “comprehensive study” of the project shortly after being elected Wisconsin’s governor in 1970.  The “study” was actually a way for the new governor to stop the project, but after a series of contentious meetings and hearings, Lucey reluctantly approved the continuation of the project.  Along with the approval, the governor attached some caveats aimed at ensuring that the water quality of the lake was of the best quality possible.

            One aspect of that improvement of the proposed lake’s water quality was to control runoff from adjacent farmlands by planting pine trees along the proposed shores of the lake.  The planting of the nearly quarter of a million of pine trees along the shores of proposed Lake La Farge was largely accomplished by the time the project was stopped in 1975.  “Lucey’s Trees” flourished on land formerly used for pastures and farm fields.  By the mid-1980s “Lucey’s Trees” had reached a height that they might be used for a Christmas tree by area residents who were so inclined to take a little hike out on the “government land” with a handsaw under their coat. 

            By the time the Kickapoo Valley Reserve was created in the mid-1990s those pine trees had grown to considerable height and the plantation-like stands of pines dominated nearly every hillside that led down to the Kickapoo River.  The new management board of the Reserve created a plan to thin “Lucey’s Trees” to further the growth of the remaining pine trees.  The forest management plan implemented selected cuttings that thinned the pine plantations of “Lucey’s Trees” on a near yearly schedule every since.  The plan was also designed to foster the pine plantations back to a pine-oak mix type of forest that was more common before the DNR project. 

The DNR was using the pine plantings to create a lakeshore similar to the lakes of northern Wisconsin.  When you look at those pine trees scattered throughout the hills of the Reserve today, you can imagine where the waters of the lake might have been.    You can almost see the waters of the lake lapping along the shoreline below the pine trees.

            What is virtually impossible to see though, are those former fields and pastures that once were on the farms along the river.  The transition back to this pine wilderness of sorts takes us right past the time of most of the 20^th century when that land was where people actually lived.  “Lucey’s Trees” are the signposts of the transition from the present back to a time before settlement in the Kickapoo Valley.