It’s going to take a few days before repairs are completed on a number of areas in Door County impacted by the heavy rainfall over the past couple of days. That’s the assessment of Thad Ash, Door County Highway Department Patrol Superintendent, who has seen some of the damage to area roads caused by multiple storms passing through the Door Peninsula. Ash notes that shoulders eroded by fast moving water has impacted some stretches of highway and there is standing water on some county roads. Rain during the storm washed out part of the ditch adjacent to Highway 42, near Ephraim, in the vicinity of the Peninsula State Park golf course. A detour on Holland Road was put in place while repairs were being made. The Village of Ephraim asked its residents to cut back on water usage while flooding issues were being dealt with and power outages were reported in a wide-range of Door County communities. Wisconsin Public Service said the highest number of electrical disruptions (1360) were found in the Baileys Harbor area Friday, but other outages were reported in the Brussels, Egg Harbor, Fish Creek, Forestville, Sister Bay and Sturgeon Bay areas. On Thursday, more than 1300 WPS customers lost power in Ellison Bay. The utility says, at the peak of the restoration effort, nearly 50,000 customers in its coverage area were without electrical service.
The amount of rain that fell in Door County as part of a series of storms beginning on Thursday is being called “unprecedented.” The largest rainfall numbers were seen in northern Door County locations where standing water has impacted segments of highway, undermining adjacent shoulders and has caused pavement to collapse. Dan Williams, who heads up Door County’s Emergency Services Department and is the county’s Emergency Management Director, says the storm’s aftermath is being attacked on several fronts…[audio:http://wdor.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/N1269.mp3|titles=Dan Williams]
Williams says some problems, such as power outages, will be attended to relatively quickly, but others will be dealt with over time…[audio:http://wdor.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/N1270.mp3|titles=Dan Williams]
Williams, who has received reports of rain gauges showing as much as nine inches of rainfall and standing water in areas that never have been flooded are clear indicators that the storm was a rarity for this part of northeast Wisconsin.
