City's snowfall near record

From the Watertown Daily Times

Jefferson County Emergency Management Director Donna Haugom told the Daily Times this morning that Jefferson County has reached flood stage on the Rock River at Fort Atkinson and on the Crawfish River at Milford. She said the county is also experiencing minor flooding of lowland areas, which is causing some residential impact, southwest of Fort Atkinson.

“The residential impact means there is some water creeping up to homes, but is not into them yet,” Haugom said. “But these homes are being impacted with water across the roads that lead up to them.”

She said water is crossing areas near Blackhawk Island, High Ridge Road, Vet's Lane and Bark River Road in the south-central part of the county.

“All of these roads are submerged and we will experience issues east of Watertown, I suspect, in the near future,” she noted. “The Crawfish is affecting mainly agricultural lands right now and River Bend Resort is probably being affected.”

Haugom said people from areas including sections of County Highway K along the Rock River are visiting the county emergency management office to get sandbags.

“We have distributed more than 1,000 sandbags so far and we have 30,000. I'm ready,” Haugom said. “The Bark and Crawfish rivers are really spreading out. With the confluence of the Crawfish and Rock in Jefferson, then those two rivers meeting the Bark in Fort ... It just aggravates the situation having the three waterways combining, then also with the ice that is on Lake Koshkonong we face more problems.”

Haugom warned any boaters who take to area waterways to heed the countywide slow, no-wake ordinance that is in effect.

“It's dangerous to be on the water right now anyway,” Haugom said. “And we ask motorists to please not go down roads with water on them unless it is absolutely necessary to do so. We want drivers to respect property owners and any (wave action) can damage their property. We are also concerned for the safety of motorists, because a car can float in just two feet of water.”