The state will move Tuesday morning to seek a major disaster declaration and federal help for residents living where floods washed away appliances, mementos, cars, homes and businesses last week, Gov. Jim Doyle announced late Monday.
A new estimate for Milwaukee County put the cost of the destruction at $37.5 million, and state officials received word that a Federal Emergency Management Agency team would soon start an assessment of what last week's deluge wrought. The team from FEMA's Chicago office is expected to tour the damaged areas, including Milwaukee, Grant and possibly other counties, starting Monday.
Accused of delaying action earlier in the day, Doyle announced hours later that he would pursue the disaster declaration ahead of the FEMA inspections.
The federal assessment, though, remains a necessary step in determining whether the flooding qualifies as a major disaster and residents are eligible to receive help for damage to their homes and other property losses not covered by insurance.
Residents and local officials have no doubt.
Three days after the rain abated, crews in Milwaukee had picked up 580 tons of debris - the furniture, photo albums, carpeting and housewares destroyed when flood waters and backed up sewage flowed into thousands of basements. Nearly 3,000 residents in Milwaukee have called to have their ruined property carted away.
In one neighborhood near Lincoln Creek, 10 homes have been placarded as unsafe and three already have been designated to be razed.
Nearly 1,000 homes and businesses in two North Shore suburbs, Whitefish Bay and Shorewood, sustained similar basement and foundation damage because of the flooding.
Damage to private homes and businesses totaled $9.75 million in Whitefish Bay, $6.3 million in Milwaukee and $1.5 million in Shorewood, according to figures released by the Milwaukee County Emergency Management Bureau.
Across the county, the damage estimate to homes and businesses reached nearly $27.1 million and the damage to public properties was estimated to be $10.3 million.
Calls to the 211 hotline to report flood damage continued steadily on Monday, as did the now ubiquitous greeting: "How's your basement?"
The backlog of calls to the hotline remained about 120 to 150, despite assistance from a half-dozen agencies called in to answer phones and provide information to water-logged residents.
"What I'm picking up on is people didn't realize how bad it was right away," said Bob Waite, program director of the 211@IMPACT hotline. "They're finding they picked everything up, and then they're finding mold and structural issues and other things going on."
More than half of the nearly 4,000 flood-related calls placed to 211 so far originated from three zip codes, 53209, 53216 and 53218, an area where observers measured more than 7 inches of rain in roughly six hours. The zip codes cover a large area around Lincoln Park on the northeast side of Milwaukee.
In 2008, when major flooding spread across 30 counties in southern Wisconsin in early June, the damage estimates continued to climb into October. FEMA then provided $97 million in federal disaster assistance to individuals and businesses and another $12 million to government entities that incurred damage. Much of the damage was caused by the severe storms that started on June 5, and the state received a federal major disaster declaration nine days later.
On Monday, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett urged Doyle to speed up the effort to help the thousands of residents now suffering because of the storms that hit on Thursday night and Friday morning. Barrett told reporters Monday afternoon that he has been calling Doyle and U.S. Rep Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) to pound home the message that "it is imperative that FEMA get here . . . sooner rather than later."
Doyle spokesman Adam Collins said the state can't make the request to FEMA until Milwaukee County and other counties in the region finish estimating the damage - something that no county has done so far.
"It's a big job and people have been working around the clock on it," Collins said. "FEMA is ready to be here early next week to validate the damage assessments, but at this point the damage assessments have not been submitted."
Sheriff David Clarke Jr. called that misinformation.
The County Emergency Management Bureau, which is a division of the sheriff's office, sent a damage report to the state on Friday, detailing a preliminary $28.5 million tally of lost property and washed out foundations.
"We sent a follow-up letter asking them to expedite this thing and get FEMA out here now so we can go about the business of getting people their disaster relief so they can get their lives back together," Clarke said.
"Our numbers are in," he said. "We are not the holdup on this."
Clarke said the revised figures reached Monday would be sent to state emergency management officials immediately.
Wisconsin Division of Emergency Management spokeswoman Lori Getter said the time being taken to seek the disaster declaration in Milwaukee is typical of such cases. The state is working with several counties hit by the floods.
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