The severe damage in central Wisconsin is only part of a broad and still evolving Midwestern flood and storm system that has broken levees, closed or wiped out bridges, and led to the evacuation of towns and cities in at least two states.
Disaster declarations have been issued in Illinois, Iowa, Indiana and Wisconsin as rivers have reached some of their highest levels in more than a decade. Nearly a quarter of a million people in Michigan are without power.
More rain threatens to add to the misery in Iowa. Residents evacuated several towns, including Waterloo, where raging floodwaters knocked out a portion of a railroad bridge. The weather will determine if the worst is yet to come.
Against a backdrop of stunning video images of an empty Lake Delton, tourism officials scrambled Tuesday to assure the public that the damage was not widespread and that the Dells "are open for business."
"What happens in the dead of the summer when the lake stinks with dead fish?" asked Jim Downs, a local who fished a dead carp out of the barren lake bed below.
"I wonder if it'll ever be the same," he said.
