madpogue 

This has been the scene the last few weeks here in southern WI:

Record rain has led to flooding in low-lying areas, including the chain of lakes around Madison. The two major lakes are at record high levels. This is the Capital City bike trail (multi-use path), as it passes the Monona Terrace convention center, right on the shore of Lake Monona near downtown.

This path is the busiest commuter thoroughfare for non-motor vehicles in Wisconsin. The lake level is actually above the level of the path at present, by more than a foot. The Center managed to re-open the path, by lining up hundreds of HUGE sandbags (each the size of a file cabinet), and running household sump pumps on Honda suitcase generators to pick up what slowly seeps under the bags and tossing it back over into the lake. It's a near-Sisyphean exercise, but it has kept the path open.

...until this morning, when they discovered someone had STOLEN seven of the eight pumps (and, in all likelihood, the generators as well). Eight inches of water on the path.

Yeah, there are bad guys everywhere; this is not the sleepy cow-town it once was (if it ever was....). But how big a blank-hole do you have to be to do something this low-down?

alan s 

no motor?

The underground parking/basement of my condo building flooded during a huge storm 8 years ago, and the electrical system got damaged enough to require running a pair of trash pumps to pump out the water so the power would come back on. The company we hired to do the cleanup just left them there with a couple of cans of gas so I could refill the tanks and said no one would take them. I was surprised, and no one did take them.

I've been to Madison and seen how beautiful that area is around the capitol. I hope things get back to normal there soon.

noisebeam

That was cash sitting on those sandbags. I am surprised they were not taken faster. Run a chain thru them next time.

pdlamb

Indeed. $2,000 per Honda generator when I priced one after tornadoes a few years back. Cheap ones are half that, and use twice the gas.

noglider 

Enormous.

Gresp15C

I live and work on the "other side" of Madison, so I haven't had to ride through the flooded areas. But some of my friends commute on that path every day.

There is probably not a solution to the flooding problem without permanently lowering the lakes, which would be controversial to say the least. At present, the target levels for the lakes in Madison are all set by state regulations, and lowering them would have a pretty drastic effect on the people who live on the shorelines.

Archwhorides 

I hear that the Governor stole those generators to reduce first cost to power needed prisons. Bikers need to consider the bigger picture!

madpogue 

Update - Center staff managed to get more pumps online, and re-opened the path mid-afternoon. That is impressively quick action, given the scale of the problem, and the other challenges they're facing, running a facility on the shore of a record-high lake.

Commuting on the isthmus is slowly improving. My street, a designated bike boulevard, has been closed for two blocks for about three weeks now. It's nowhere near either lake, but it's at the lowest elevation between the lakes. And the storm drains are in effect extensions of the river at present. This was the scene about 10 days ago.

Even the sidewalks were flooded at one intersection. The water is going down, slowly. I expect this block will open up by the weekend. But between one form of construction or another on literally every route option (and I have just a 1.5 mile commute) and this latest development, I've been commuting on MTN bikes all summer.

Problem is, there's no "around", since the building looms right over the lake, with the path passing underneath. And there's no real other route; this is a narrow corridor between the lake and Capitol hill, all pinch in next to a major divided road and a railroad. The path was closed for a week or so before the pumps were deployed, and commuters just had to get on the major streets that run up Capitol hill. As for frequency, these are record high levels, but it's also a wake-up call; things are NOT going to get better all by themselves.

Ding-ding, bonus round! The lakes have been kept artificially high for decades. First, to run a mill many decades ago. More recently, to make the lakes deeper and larger so the people who own lakeshore property can run speedboats faster, and have their docks closer. Lowering the levels, however traumatic is going to be the only realistic solution; we can't pump our way out of this. I see a "clash of the titans" on the horizon. The lakefront elites are "old money". There's a rash of high(-ish)-rise development near downtown (scene above is actually right at the doorstep of a new high-end condo/retail complex), catering to the booming biotech/med economy. That's "new money", and they have a major stake in keeping the land between, and away from, the lakes high and dry. They may have a level of influence that "the locals", working/office class residents of old wood frame houses like me, have never had.

Meanwhile, I'm keeping the knobbies on.....

wipekitty

Ugh - sorry to see that the rain and damage hit that far south/east (I've not been keeping up with regional news).

Here in La Crosse, the marsh that divides the north and south sides of town filled up - which is its job, as it helps keep the town from flooding when the rivers rise, preventing the kind of devastation they've had in some nearby communities.

The problem is that one of the paths through the marsh is the main north/south connector for bicycles. Here's the marsh path, as of yesterday. There's another east-west path that usually gets even worse flooding, but I didn't make it over there for obvious reasons!

madpogue 

^^^^ Oof, so close and yet so far away.....

So that's all part of the La Crosse River watershed, then, eh? I knew the Kickapoo, Wisconsin, etc. watersheds were affected, but I didn't realize the flooding issues went as far as your neck of the woods.

General Geoff

Ain't scared of a bit of water

madpogue 

^^^^ Yeah, I would have "some 'splainin' too doo" about what would happen to the Dell table I carry to/from work each day....

CliffordK

I was going to say, everything looked nice until I read the punch line in your last sentence.



Perhaps someone had a basement to pump out.

It is funny, some things like those portable solar/battery construction signs can be left out, and presumably nobody touches them.

Then, other things... wham, GONE!!!

I agree with @noisebeam. Lock em up if you wish to keep them. Of course, there may not be much to lock them to, but make some effort just to keep away the opportunistic thieves.

no motor?

One of my friends lived between the 2 lakes in Madison for a while and I wondered what would happen during times of high water - it didn't seem like there was much to hold the lake back when the water level started to rise.