𝐅𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐃 𝐃𝐀𝐌𝐀𝐆𝐄 𝐈𝐍 𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒
April, 1973

𝘊𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰𝘯 𝘛𝘰𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘳, 𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘈𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘭 26, 1973

Durlin Harnack, Rock County highway commissioner, last Monday said that replacing five bridges and road repairs in the area will come to approximately one million dollars, due to last Saturday's flash flooding. The five bridges are on Tighe Road, east of Highway 140 south of Clinton; Walworth County Line south of Highway 15; Northrup, southeast of Clinton; Summerville Rd. in the town of Clinton; Stateline Road in the town of Turtle, south of County P.

Richard Post, Jr., Turtle Town chairman, said Stateline Road will be closed to thru traffic for quite some time. Wallace Hahn, Clinton town chairman, said he felt that this was a major disaster for the area due to the damages to farms and homes. Also, he said that four or five roads in Clinton Township will be closed indefinitely to thru traffic.

The Lloyd Johns family were eating breakfast Saturday morning when they saw water from Turtle Creek halfway up in their corn field. By 9 a.m. they were in water up to their waists, getting things out of their barn. A little to the west of the John's farm, water was flooding Creek Road.

The Howard Morwood family at Carvers Rock noticed the water at 2 a.m. and sat up until 4:30 a.m. but the water didn't seem to be getting worse so they went to bed. At 7 a.m. water was up to the door handle of their son Mike's car which was badly damaged by the water. Firemen took two children out of the house but Mrs. Morwood said she and her husband would stay in the house until water came in the door. Fortunately, water didn't come in the door but the cellar and garage were flooded and the family were still cleaning up Monday afternoon.

The Elmer Burtard family, 202 Durand suffered approximately $1,500 loss which wasn't covered by insurance. Mr. Burtard checked the sump pumps at 11 p.m. Friday night and everything was all right, but early Saturday morning the weight of the surface water broke a cellar window and water poured in filling the basement to the top of the furnace. The freezer floated and then tipped over, dumping the contents and ruining all the food. The Clinton Fire Department pumped water for an hour on a three foot pond in the back yard and then pumped water out of the basement for three hours. Points on the water heater fused together and only steam came out of the hot water faucets. Two sump pumps continued to operate underwater and after being dried out in the oven, are continuing to operate. There were two inches of mud in the Burtard basement and four people worked Saturday and Sunday getting things out of the basement.

Rev. LeRoy Sandee said there were about six inches of water in the basement of the Emmanuel Reformed Church, but the water was pumped out in time to use the basement Sunday morning. One of the three rolls of new carpeting is being dried out and they expect to salvage all of the carpeting. William Punzel was working Saturday morning to pump about 18 inches of water out of the basement of the Village Hall.

Ron Freitag on Colley Road said he lost about five inches of topsoil, as his land is along the creek.

Saturday evening Pete Tiffany, Bob Maxworthy and other men helped rescue four men whose raft crashed into the bridge at Turtleville.