Only one death has been attributed to Milwaukee’s historic flooding earlier this month. But people from a local homeless encampment might disagree. Two men were found in Lake Michigan from a south side encampment that sits along the Kinnickinick River. Another two are missing.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter, Gina Lee Castro, has been reporting on the missing men and what we should know about the efforts to find them.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Can we start with the missing men, who are they and what did you find out about them?
What I've learned about Miguel Flores. His family reported him missing on Aug. 14. I've connected with his two nephews Arturo and Juan Vasquez. Miguel was a great uncle. He traveled with them for Arturo son's soccer tournaments. He's really funny. He's a hard worker. He worked at their construction company, and he was homeless by choice.
Can you tell me about where he was staying? You reported quite a bit on the encampment, what should we know about it and who is all there?
So the homeless encampment is under the bridge at an intersection of South Chase Avenue and South First Street along the Kinnikinnick River. And I visited a few times and it is right on the banks of the river. Where they stayed under the bridge, it's a kind of a tight squeeze, you kind of have to crouch a little bit. And what I've heard from homeless outreach groups is that the place looked like a home.
Before the flood, there was a couch, there were mattresses, there were blankets. I've heard from Street Angels that for the past 10 years there could be anywhere between one person living there to several. And then from Ben’s Friends under the Bridge, they told me that anywhere between five to 12 people have stayed at that encampment over the years.
What's important from your reporting is that this encampment, which is right on the banks of the river, also feeds into Lake Michigan, which is where a couple bodies were found that were also in the encampment. But I want to get to Miguel's family, can you tell me about all of the work they're doing to try to find him and locate him now?
So this past Saturday, they started searching before 9 a.m. They got together with more than 40 volunteers to search the Kinnickinick River. They started at the encampment and took kayaks into the river with help from Brew City Kayaking. And they searched for several hours, but the family searched the whole day, and they plan to do it again this coming up Saturday.
So there's been this really large response from his family and also community outreach, but some folks that have not participated in this active search are Milwaukee police and the City of Milwaukee. What do we know about why – let's start with the police and why they're not actively engaging in a search for Miguel.
The Milwaukee Police Department has said that they will not search the river right now because they don't have enough information. They need to have had a witness who has told the police department that they had seen Flores or others from the homeless encampment being swept into the water. Without that information there, they're not going to search. And then when I reached out to the mayor's office, they really just referred me to emergency services like MPD.
The thing that makes Miguel’s story so remarkable is that he had all of these points of contact: he had a job, he had family that he checked in with, it seems like every day, and these are routines that have just stopped over the past couple of weeks. It feels like his case, it feels like it should be more clear cut.
Yeah what's different about Miguel Flores is he had a lot of touch points, like every single day he would go to her sister's house to shower, to eat, to charge up his phone. He would hang out at the park. His nephew used to be able to find him there quite easily. And he also worked at their construction company. And so when he didn't show up to those things, and even when one of Miguel's close friends called Arturo about not seeing him, it became apparent quite quickly that he was missing.
There's language you used within the story that I found really interesting about when MPD will start to engage in a search, and it's if someone's “critically missing,” which they pointed to if it wasn't the case of a missing child. And then you also made a note if it were in the case of a disaster, like flooding. So why has he still not been designated “critically missing”?
Because according to the Milwaukee Police Department they have had no witnesses see him go into the water, and they do not speculate that he could have been swept in the water. They will not consider a drowning without a witness and without more information beyond that.
The idea that they would need a witness is really interesting considering the fact that there were two bodies found in Lake Michigan from that same encampment after the flood: Juan Carlos Sierra Campos and Isaias Serna. But their deaths aren't being considered flood related. Why is that?
Well, Juan Carlos Campos when he was found the day after the flood, the medical examiner's office and the police department both reported that his death was not flood related. I have asked both departments multiple times how they came to this conclusion because the bodies were found in Lake Michigan and they have not answered that question.
But with Isaias Serna, the medical examiner did say it could be flood related and did confirm he did look homeless.
Reading your reporting throughout this event and thinking of your reporting on unhoused folks during the RNC last year, what comes to mind is that it’s really tough to keep track of people who are unhoused. I'm thinking of Isaias, whose brother was found at a laundromat around the same time that Isaias’s body was recovered from Lake Michigan. What are the challenges in tracking people that don't have permanent residences in situations like this?
What I've learned from organizations like Street Angels is that major disasters like extreme weather, like floods, displaces people and it changes their routine. So maybe they don't show up for aid this week but maybe they show up the next. I heard from another organization, Many Streets, that they were looking for someone and they ended up being in jail. So it can be tough when they don't have a family, or an address, to really know for certain if they're lost. Also, sometimes people who are unhoused don't share their last names or maybe go by a different first name. All those things contribute.
