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This morning, the local news site reported the following:
July 22, 2010 6:20 a.m. | A new batch of showers and thunderstorms is moving into the area, bringing with it the possibility of 1-3 inches of rain by tonight, according to Craig Koplien at TMJ4. The National Weather Service has issued a flash flood watch for much of the state - from Prairie du Chien to Green Bay - but not for the immediate Milwaukee area.
At 4:55, a coworker and I heard tornado sirens. Everyone in the building went to shelters, and then the power went out for about fifteen minutes. A little bit later, the rain let up and I went home. The yard was in good shape, and no water came in the windows. That surprised me because when I was watching it at work, the rain was coming across the parking lot horizontally. It did knock down my rock garden, though. We had near-constant thunder and lightning for about an hour and a half.
A couple of hours later, Cyn saw on facebook, that there was trouble. "Storms pound city, snarl traffic," the headlines read. I43 and US45 are closed. An underpass on I43 was under several feet of water. From the news, "Many streets are under water, "Every underpass is blocked off with water. Numerous spots on the northwest side are simply impassable." There are stories of dive teams being sent out. That's a bad sign. And manymany basements were flooded, many with sewage backups.
The storm front stretched east to west, and was moving east-southeast. In other words, the front was moving sideways over us, rather than across us quickly. Some rainfall totals were over five inches, by 6:00. As of 9:00, some gauges read 7.5 inches.
One busy intersection that was not underwater, is now blocked by a sinkhole.
July 22, 2010 6:20 a.m. | A new batch of showers and thunderstorms is moving into the area, bringing with it the possibility of 1-3 inches of rain by tonight, according to Craig Koplien at TMJ4. The National Weather Service has issued a flash flood watch for much of the state - from Prairie du Chien to Green Bay - but not for the immediate Milwaukee area.
At 4:55, a coworker and I heard tornado sirens. Everyone in the building went to shelters, and then the power went out for about fifteen minutes. A little bit later, the rain let up and I went home. The yard was in good shape, and no water came in the windows. That surprised me because when I was watching it at work, the rain was coming across the parking lot horizontally. It did knock down my rock garden, though. We had near-constant thunder and lightning for about an hour and a half.
A couple of hours later, Cyn saw on facebook, that there was trouble. "Storms pound city, snarl traffic," the headlines read. I43 and US45 are closed. An underpass on I43 was under several feet of water. From the news, "Many streets are under water, "Every underpass is blocked off with water. Numerous spots on the northwest side are simply impassable." There are stories of dive teams being sent out. That's a bad sign. And manymany basements were flooded, many with sewage backups.
The storm front stretched east to west, and was moving east-southeast. In other words, the front was moving sideways over us, rather than across us quickly. Some rainfall totals were over five inches, by 6:00. As of 9:00, some gauges read 7.5 inches.
One busy intersection that was not underwater, is now blocked by a sinkhole.
Here is the account of the man who rescued the driver of a Cadillac Escalade from a sinkhole at Oakland and North Avenues.:
Mark Pawlik, 46, was walking across the North Ave. bridge and talking to his friend on the phone when he noticed a traffic light had sunk into the ground. Just the red, yellow and green lights were above street level. He told his friend he'd call him back. It was still pouring rain, but he wanted to stop and take a picture. A moment later a man driving a black Escalade pulled up to the intersection at North and Oakland Aves., going east on North Ave.
"The Escalade just went wham!" Pawlik said. "Everything went down. The power line went like "pow" and then I think it was sewer water was just pouring into the hole."
Pawlik leaned over the edge of the sink hole, which was then about 15 feet by 15 feet.
"I said, hey, man, are you OK, are you OK?"
Pawlik said the man kept saying, "What happened, what just happened?"
The driver pulled himself onto the hood and then fell down into the hole. He pulled himself back up onto the hood and Pawlik took his hand and then his belt loop to get him out of the hole. He said he was the only person in the car. By that time, several people had gathered around the edge of the hole.
Pawlik could see that the ground had given way beneath the asphalt and yelled at people to get back. Pawlik said he and several others tried to reach 911 but got busy signals, so a few people flagged down a city bus and asked the driver to call in the emergency. Police arrived and put emergency tape up, and an ambulance took the driver of the Escalade away. Pawlik, who owns a towing company, said the hole was about 20 feet deep. see the picture also
