'That lady on Milwaukee' thankful for plumber's vigil
“It could be worse ... I feel for that lady on Milwaukee Avenue.” That is the mantra heard over and over when talking to people struggling in the wake of what’s become known as “the Great Flood of ’08. “That lady on Milwaukee Avenue” is 61-year-old Charlotte Curley. The 5-foot-2-inch Fort Atkinson women resides at 532 East Milwaukee Ave., a brick ranch home with a finished basement and upstairs bedroom. The house sits on a half-acre lot, one vacant lot up from the Bark River. Tom and Sue Burgess, the previous owners of the home, had had their property surveyed and it was determined that the house was two inches above the floodplain ... and therefore not required to carry flood insurance, according to Charlotte. Charlotte’s husband, Michael, and her mother, Jessie Rustemeyer, were asleep early on the morning of Tuesday, June 10, when Charlotte woke up to the sound of thumping. The first thing she did was to check on her husband, who is bedridden, receiving hospice care and on oxygen due to the lung condition pulmonary fibrosis. Seeing nothing to account for the noise there, she checked on her mother, who has lived with them since losing her husband in 2005. Again, nothing was amiss. Charlotte then went downstairs. She had just had new sump pumps installed in the fall, so she was shocked to discover 23 inches of clean water in her finished basement.
	Charlotte Curley, center, returns to her East Milwaukee Avenue home with assistance from Rachel and Mark “The Plumber” Engelke.
“Things were just floating,” Charlotte recalled. “I couldn’t think.” She called 911. “They couldn’t help me. They told me to call a plumber. I was crying. It was 4:30 in the morning,” she said. (The full story appears in the July 3 Daily Union).

Disaster center on deck

JEFFERSON — A Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Disaster Recovery Center is slated to open in Jefferson County on Monday, July 7.

The center will be located in the lower level of the county’s University of Wisconsin-Extension building at 864 Collins Road in Jefferson. Hours of operation are slated to be 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Regardless of where they live, Wisconsin residents with storm damage who have applied for federal disaster assistance can visit any Disaster Recovery Center.

Wisconsin Emergency Management, FEMA and the U.S. Small Business Administration now have multiple disaster recovery centers open in storm-damaged southern Wisconsin counties.

The centers are set up to help individuals and business owners who are registered for disaster assistance by answering questions and providing them with information on FEMA disaster programs.

In addition, U.S. Small Business Administration customer service representatives can help explain the federal low-interest disaster loan program to homeowners, renters and business owners. Representatives from other state, federal and volunteer agencies also might be able to assist the applicants.

No cash, checks, debit cards or vouchers are distributed at the disaster centers. The centers provide information to assist residents with the disaster-recovery process. (The full story appears in the July 3 Daily Union).

Jefferson summer school is back in session after flood

JEFFERSON — It’s already been an unprecedented year for Jefferson summer school, even though the second session has yet to start.

From the beginning, record flooding caused the program to be delayed a week, a decision local school officials have never before had to make.

When it did open, older students and staff members were encouraged — although not required — to use porta-potties for the first week rather than contribute to the overflow of water going into the city’s wastewater treatment plant.

This also marks the first year that the summer school program has offered in-town busing, due to road construction and flooding.

The district has previously bused in students from the Rome and Sullivan areas, but students within the City of Jefferson have always had to walk, bike or rely on their parents for transportation.

This year, due to road construction on U.S. Highway 18, summer school director Mike Howard said school officials decided they would bus students from East Elementary School to where summer school is being held at Jefferson High School and West Elementary School.

Continued flooding closed the city’s only two north-south bridges, on Wisconsin Avenue and State Highway 26, and led the district to offer bus service from the south side of town as well.

The south route, which was in use until Wisconsin Avenue reopened earlier this week, transported students from the Jefferson Bus Service parking lot on the south side of town to the schools on the north side of town via a detour through Lake Mills. (The full story appears in the July 3 Daily Union).