Jessica Young and her family had just returned Saturday to their home near the Menomonee River Parkway from a family vacation. They were aware of the incoming storm, but had no idea of the severity of what they would wake up to.
“So we woke up at about 6:30, and we have a multi-level house. The ground level had about 2.5 or 3 feet of water in it. And my son — he’s 3 — came up the stairs. He was excited, like he thought it was a pool. I was floored because I opened the blinds and, you know, couldn’t see the cars across the street. The water was halfway up the cars. I couldn’t see my plants outside. Half of the basketball hoop was covered. It was like, that happens in movies or in other states on the news, you know,” says Young.
Young and her family spent the next few hours on the phone with 911 and keeping an eye on the water levels. While waiting inside her home, she could see neighbors gathering.
“I could see a block up that there was dry land, and so tons of neighbors and people were just standing out there, but there was no way we could open any of our doors or even do anything. Plus, the electricity was on, which is amazing. We were very lucky, but that’s scary because I don’t know what’s going to happen,” says Young.
Young watched as some of her neighbors in the flooded area were taken by boat to dry land. By roughly 11 a.m. Sunday, she and her family were picked up by a boat as well.
“I’m so glad that the — I don’t even know if it was firefighters, rescuers, all the people — there were police, that they knew what to do. Because we’re just not an area that has lots of flooding, and so I was a little bit nervous that the people who had to rescue us maybe wouldn’t know what to do, because it’s crazy,” she says.
Now Young and her family are staying in a hotel and trying to find help to fix the damage left by the high waters.
“That’s as much as we just learned — that basically we shouldn’t be living in our house right now until the mitigation is done. And the insurance adjuster was saying that it might be a week or more of work from the mitigation team, only after we talked to them. And the fact that we haven’t even been able to get a hold of anybody to talk to makes me feel like no one’s going to even get to our house for the next few days,” says Young.
Young says she doesn’t have flood insurance to help cover the expense of repairs to her home. But she’s hoping her property outside the home that was damaged, like her car, will be covered by insurance.
Like many families in the Milwaukee area, Young’s family is still taking in the financial and emotional damage the storm has left.
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