Floods Strike Midwest

While the West is struggling to cope with record-setting drought conditions, midwestern states are struggling to cope with the opposite problem: floods.

Wisconsin Army National Guard troops rushed 80,000 sandbags from Camp Douglas to Berlin in Green Lake County on Thursday as residents fought the rising Fox River for the sixth straight day, state emergency management officials told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

Two major storms in a three-day period flooded low-lying areas, basements and crawlspaces in Indiana, and fast-moving water washed out a portion of county road 400 North, The Post & Mail reported.

Some Wisconsin and Indiana residents have been asked to evacuate their homes because flood waters are expected to continue to rise over the next few days are are not expected to recede below flood levels for more than two weeks. And this is not taking into account the possibility of additional severe storms within this time period.

"The water keeps rising in Berlin," Green Lake County Emergency Management Director Gary Podoll told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel "The river is getting to places it has never gone before."

Source: The Post & Mail and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel