Levee along Wisconsin River fails; extent of possible flooding unknown

[speppin]

Source: cnn





Levee along Wisconsin River fails; extent of possible flooding unknown
By the CNN Wire Staff
September 27, 2010 9:21 a.m. EDT


Get more coverage of floods from CNN affiliates WISC, WKOW, and WMSN in Madison, Wisconsin, and WISN in Milwaukee.

(CNN) -- As many as 100 homes could be affected by flood waters in Wisconsin as forecasters anticipate the total failure of a 120-year-old sand levee along the Wisconsin River.

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"Once the levee completely fails ... it is unknown how far south the flood waters of the Wisconsin River will travel," the weather agency said Sunday night.


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The levee system, built in the 1890s, was constructed from locally available materials -- mostly sand -- "without any engineering design or adherence to any standards," the natural resources department said in a statement last week.

"This is a 120-year-old relic," Matthews said. "It's made of sand. ... A modern levee that our engineers would be familiar with would be constructed of steel and concrete."

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/09/27/wisconsin.flooding/index.html?iref=NS1

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A levee broke two years ago and drained a big lake near here. Google Lake Dalton for that story.


Our infrastructure is failing. We have know that for years. Yet we spent billions on wars and building other nations.

[Kolesar]

1. Too bad we cannot transport it to the droughty states

for a price

[myrna minx]

2. K&R. n/t

[Botany]

3. Hang on my Wisconsin friends

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbrjRKB586s

[BadgerKid]

4. Delton looks drained still

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=43.602459,-89.773149&spn=0.028404,0.047722&t=h&z=14

[Ellipsis]

5. I know this levy.

It's at a bend in the river just below the City of Portage...

relatively low population. There is a power plant just downstream however.

I'd be more concerned for the Lone Rock/Boscobel area and Prairie Du Chen as the river peeks just above the mouth of the Mississippi.