Saving a home on Blackhawk Island

WTMJ - Milw

Our efforts began early in the week last week. Steve began pulling shrubs and trying save what we could. We all pulled together and started filling sandbags Thursday night and began building our wall of safety. We dug trenches and built birms to stop the water, never having a clue it would get so bad.

By Friday morning the water had reached the sandbag wall and our efforts continued all night, all day Saturday until wee hours of the morning.

Traveling by boat and tossing heavy, wet sand bags, we worked hard as a team, sons and daughters, grandchildren, and friends, to save Grandpa and Grandma's house. They have lived here forever; their children and grand chidren were raised here. We raced to get generators and extra supplies as the DNR was bringing WE Energies down to cut gas and electric to homes.

We wanted to be prepared, but they spared us. They saw our futile efforts and without power, how would we run the numerous sump pumps.

Completely exhausted early Sunday morning, we finally headed to our boats, trolled down the road back to our vehicles and headed home.

I will never forget the call I received a little after 5:00 a.m on Father's Day morning from my sister. Part of our sand bag wall had collapsed and water crashed through grandpa's home. Jackie was on the phone with him when it happened and it was the most devasting thing to hear.

We all headed back down as quickly as we could with as much extra help as we could find and began again. We struggled with heavy, wet sand bags to brace the wall, only to have it collapse three more times in different spots.

By the end of the night, the water was out of the house for the most part, carpet was removed, damaged items tossed in a garbage pile. The pile is building and building as we have no place to take things.

Tuesday, June 17th, the wall broke again, this time even worse, and with the terribly high winds, it was even harder for them to work with the sand bags. The house was filled with water again, over knee deep.

We can not and will not quit, they are our parents, our grandparents, our family, and our friends, but have you ever felt as helpless as we do right now. Our love and thoughts are with you every day Grandma and Grandpa.