By Brandi Makuski

By all accounts, it was the worst storm in recent memory — at least two decades’ worth.

Many local residents knew about the severe storm warning issued late Monday afternoon, but no one expected what happened when it arrived: three inches of rain in about 30 minutes and 50-plus mile-an-hour straight, sustained winds.

About a dozen fires, caused by downed power lines, were reported during the storm and in its immediate aftermath. Thousands of trees were uprooted, cored or knocked over; dozens of power lines fell, stamping out power for thousands, and an unknown number of motorists were stranded on flooded roadways — some for several hours. A few instances were reported of people being trapped inside their homes, and dispatchers were overwhelmed with hundreds of calls for help.

“The eeriest thing was being on city streets without power.”

A completely flooded intersection at Division and Main streets. (City Times photo)

“I’ve been here 23 years and this is the worst I’ve seen,” said Stevens Point Assistant Police Chief Mike Rottier. “I’ve seen those [CN] underpasses get three, four feet of water — but they got six-to-eight feet that night. That’s crazy.”

Rottier said he headed for home when his shift ended a 3 PM, but returned to the police station later that night to help manage resources until about 1 AM the following morning.

“The eeriest thing was being on city streets without power; I’ve been on city streets at night, but with streetlights and house lights,” he said. “With absolutely no power it looks like a totally different road.”

SPPD called in several off-duty personnel to help manage the crisis, Rottier said, but resources were still stretched thin, and officers simply could not be everywhere they were needed.

“We’ve got a great streets department, and a lot of their guys came in to help free up officers,” he said. “Everyone worked so well together, and we had no deaths associated with the storm, and no serious injuries, so we’re all grateful for that.”

“We’ll be cleaning up for a long time.”

Streets Superintendent Dennis Laidlaw said his department called in 13 off-duty employees to help with the fist wave of damage control Monday night, which involved clearing as many roads and rights-of-way as possible so emergency vehicles could get through.

Streets crews working on the Michigan Ave. underpass. (City Times photo)

“In some cases we could only barricade areas because [exposed] wires were involved, and we’re not qualified to deal with that,” Laidlaw said. “But the Wisconsin Public Service response has been awesome; they’ve scrambled crews from all over. Given the scope of the damage, everyone’s doing an awesome job.”

Now, Laidlaw said his crews are trying to document the entire scope of storm as it relates to his department, but estimated damage costs would come later from the city treasurer.

“We’ll be cleaning up for a long time; we’ve got knocked-down trees that ripped open sidewalks; and in some cases crushed the side of the street,” he said. “It’s pretty extensive, and it’ll be a time-consuming process.”

Laidlaw’s department worked hand-in-hand with the city’s police and fire departments on Monday, utilizing landline and cellphone communication to deploy crews around the city. 

“We had cones and barricades up, but people were just driving around them…causing bigger issues.”

“We couldn’t use the radio because there was so much other radio traffic, so our trucks were calling in here,” said Stevens Point Assistant Fire Chief Jodi Baganz.

Baganz said a small team stayed at Station No. 1 to handle communication and track available resources during, and for several hours after, the storm. Firefighters Jeremiah Parker and Drew Egan, and Lt. Paul Mattlin were responsible for tracking all calls and vehicles as they were dispatched, noting everything on their meeting room white board.

Assistant EMS Chief Joe Gemza was tracking street closures; Baganz tracked communication between police and the streets dept.; and Chief Bob Finn stood at the intersection of Franklin and Division streets to direct traffic away from rising waters in front of the station, which swelled nearly 20 feet past the curb and into the department’s Division St. driveway.

“I had to order all new rolls of [caution] fire tape.”

Baganz also said several firefighters stayed late, and nine off-duty firefighters came in to assist. Eventually, he also had to leave the station to help out on the roads, leaving three firefighters behind to manage communication. 

“We just had so much damage and it was so spread out; we had cones and barricades up, but people were just driving around them anyway and causing bigger issues,” he said. “How do you fix that?”

As the emergency began to subside, Baganz said firefighters analyzed the department’s response, and in the process created a list of items they should stock for future disasters of similar magnitude.

“I had to order all new rolls of [caution] fire tape,” Baganz said. “We used 20 rolls, and they’re 1,000 feet each. We have three rolls left.”

Other items on the SPFD list included extra cutting tools, inflatable arm floats, extra bottled water — and snacks.

“It does [sound trivial],” Baganz said, chuckling, “but think about it — the storm hit around 6 o’clock at night; these guys hadn’t eaten yet and they’re still going at two, three in the morning. How do you say, ‘OK, send someone to Kwik Trip’? It doesn’t really work that way.”

Baganz and others at SPFD were busy watching weather radars on Wednesday, anticipating more problems in the face of another thunderstorm warning. Though that storm front passed over the area relatively quickly, Baganz said about a dozen off-duty firefighters volunteered to come in if needed.

“We just had the conversation about being prepared again this afternoon,” Baganz said on Wednesday. “We’re gearing up again; you just never know. The only thing left, I think, is for us to find our [orange street] cones…I think streets [department] has them.”

“Twenty of our guys responded to the station during the storm.”

Plover firefighters check the weather radar on their phones while waiting to see if Wednesday’s storm would get worse. About eight members of the volunteer dept. were called in as a preemptive measure when a storm warning was issued on June 14. (City Times photo)

Plover Fire Chief Mark Deaver said his department received its first page shortly after 6 PM on Monday — a Metro Fire call for a structure fire on Bukolt Avenue.

Things went downhill fast from there, he said. Plover assisted Metro Fire as long as possible, but it wasn’t long before they had to return to the village for their own bevy of structure fires and downed power lines.

Not long after the storm passed, Deaver was diverting traffic away from a section of Elm St., rendered unsafe by downed power lines. One motorist tried to get through Deaver’s barricade — until an explosion of sparks came from the power line.

“He decided at that time he would go around,” Deaver said, chuckling. 

Deaver, along with Assistant Fire Chief Ken Voss and about eight of their volunteer firefighters, were standing by at the Plover Fire Station on Wednesday afternoon, shortly after the second severe thunderstorm warning in three days was issued.

“We’re just being a little extra prepared, especially after what happened Monday,” he said. “We do a lot of training throughout the year, and we just did our annual weather training last week, but I don’t think anyone was expecting what happened.”

In addition to their own emergency calls, Deaver said, the department also assisted in the Village of Whiting, which has a considerably smaller public works crew.

“Our guys were also stopping at emergencies on the way to other emergencies,” Voss said, adding crews worked with public works and Plover police to get most roads back open by 10 PM.

“You always prepare for the worst, but I don’t think anybody was expecting that.”

This 75-foot Locust tree was blown over on the 2600 block of Golden Rd. in Plover. (Courtesy City Times reader Marc Frederiksen)

Plover Police Chief Dan Ault said he was aware the storm was headed this way when he left work for the day, and everyone in his department expected a strong storm.

“I was watching it on radar, and it looked pretty bad but I don’t think anybody knew it would be like that,” Ault said on Tuesday. “I don’t think I’ve seen rain like that ever.”

Ault said he and Lt. Ryan Fox coordinated the department’s response to emergencies throughout the village by phone.

“Once we realized how much damage there was — just the stuff we could see, it was just…unreal,” Ault said, shaking his head. “But our public works guys are the real heroes; they handled everything so well and had just about every road back open by 10 PM. We had just done our annual weather training last week, so the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. You always prepare for the worst, but I don’t think anybody knew what was coming.”

“At least 10 firefighters came in, and their significant others and spouses came in to help assess damage.”

Park Ridge Fire Chief said officials in that village were busy on Wednesday after declaring an official state of disaster.

Park Ridge Fire Chief Brian Lepper had been completing storm reports on Thursday since 7:30 AM. (City Times photo)

“We self-deployed; we were never paged by the [Portage Co.] communication center for any storm response,” said Lepper, who was with his family when the storm hit. “Most of my staff was already here when I got here at 6:41 PM.”

Lepper said by 10:15 PM, every road without an electrical obstruction had at least one lane open for traffic. 

“At least 10 firefighters came in, and significant others and spouses came in to help assess damage,” Lepper said, adding his own wife was among the citizen-volunteers. “We had a village trustee running a chainsaw for us Monday night; we also had an excavator who lives in the village show up, totally on his own, to help out.”

Working through the county’s emergency management office, Lepper was able to help secure some help from the state. Strike teams from the Dept. of Natural Resources arrived on Wednesday, he said, to help clear debris, but some of the heavy equipment headed for Park Ridge was diverted to Shawno Co., which was hit hard by multiple tornadoes Wed. night.

“That we didn’t have any reported deaths or major injuries is just remarkable,” he said.