Black Earth Children’s Museum set to re-open after flood damage

BLACK EARTH, Wis. — The beloved Children’s Museum in Black Earth has been closed for several weeks now.

After pumping out more than 300,000 gallons of water, they’re rebuilding.

While so many other businesses have closed permanently from flood damage, Karen Carlock is too determined to do that.

“We opened in June 2017, and since then we’ve had over 15,000 people come through our doors. We have over 350 memberships. So it’s been really successful, beyond what I ever imagined,” Carlock said.

It’s a fun space for kids and birthday parties and has been a dream come true for Carlock and thousands of others.

“I love hearing the parents say, ‘It’s just so easy to bring my kids here and they have so much fun,'” she said.

But before the fun can start up again, they’ve still got some work to do.

“It (the water) actually came all the way up to this step, and you can see the grime. So it filled the entire basement and then came up the stairs. So we just, by a foot and a half, avoided the water coming up on the main level and hitting all of the exhibits,” Carlock said.

All of the exhibits survived the flood, and none were touched by the floodwaters.

“The first thing I thought was, ‘Oh, I’m so thankful it didn’t reach our exhibit level,'” she said.

Even though only the basement suffered damage, there was much more in there aside from museum storage supplies. It also houses materials for the community’s food pantry. Many cans and supplies were destroyed.

But on Sept. 29, Carlock said the museum and food pantry will be open again, this time better than before.

“We’re excited to get the building back up and operational, and we want to see the food pantry and the museum continue to succeed,” Carlock said.

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