Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Clueless

No Boating Now

I'm embarrassed to admit that I spent a night at the epicenter of a disaster and never realized it. I knew that a lake in Wisconsin had burst out of its walls and disappeared but I didn't listen carefully to which lake. Off Interstate 90 you can't see much flood damage and we went straight to the water park to entertain the kids.
After folks asked questions in the comments on my last post, I took a second look. It is pretty sad to see a lake with no water.

Where have all the waters gone

Given all the homes and condos along Lake Delton there wasn't a lot of lake front access but what we saw was pretty barren. A lot of mud, boat docks high and dry and in the distance, one house seemingly snapped in two. We saw a man walking the mud flats with a metal detector. I wonder what he'll find. It did appeal to the treasure hunter in me. All I found was a rusty bike.

Flotsam or Jetsam

My son asked if it was inappropriate to take pictures of other people's misery. I would guess not since we are doing so in order to express our condolences.
Best of luck and a speedy recovery to all those flooded or otherwise storm damaged here in the Midwest and around the world.

4 comments:

Kathe said...

Sounds like a similar situation to what we had here a few years ago when the dam broke on the Dead River. There used to be a lake at Tourist Park, but now it's just the river. There was a lot of damage for several miles -- all the way to (and into) Lake Superior. Governor Granholm paid a visit or two, but the damage apparently wasn't enough to warrant FEMA's involvement.

Andree said...

There has been no word of this lake disaster here. I don't watch the news but I do catch news on the web and I saw nothing. Your photos are so dramatic. I hope everyone is OK.

JL said...

Yep, that's what it looks like, all right! Nah, take pictures. Everyone else does. Some of the best are taken from a private plane the day after.

If it's any consolation, Delton was a man-made lake. It wasn't natural. That doesn't change the magnitude of the impact on the people who lived around it, but nature is as nature does, and so much for The Army Corps of Engineers and the WPA.

Wry jokes locally:

"Hell, just drop in the garden hose and let 'er rip!"

"Isn't that the job for the volunteer fire department? They came over and filled my pool for a keg of Schlitz!"

Etc. But what else are you really going to do?

And here I'm not being facetious, I do hope you all had fun. The best thing you could do is come and spend a few bucks at the Dells.

p said...

that old bike photo grabbed my attention, could you go back and get it and send it to me ... ha ha
for some reason the question your son asked about inappropriateness made me want to answer him but i can't come up with the right words. i think there is probably an answer to that that would help him see things in a different way. do you know what i mean?