Cassville river homes take brunt of storm damage, power outages

Homes along the Mississippi River appear to have taken the brunt of storm damage and power outages in historic Cassville, prompting an emergency declaration by the village president Tuesday.

“Because of the severe damage, I hope we can get help with cleanup costs,” village President Keevin Williams said.

Crews have started to turn countless historic, old trees that were uprooted into timber piles throughout the area. The scene is especially striking along Jack Oak Road, which touches the Mississippi River and is lined with mostly weekend and vacation homes.

The owners include Harriet Deider, from Cuba City, whose property, which originally belonged to her parents, lost many trees.

“It’s the worst I’ve ever seen it down here except for the flooding. In ‘65 and ‘02. And you just have to know Mother Nature’s in charge,” Deider said.

Along with the 70 to 100 mile per hour straight line winds also blowing away her screened-in porch’s screens and her boat dock covering, power outages also meant Platteville’s Laurie Digman and her husband had to clean up spoiled food.

“Everything in our refrigerator, freezer — that pretty much thawed,” Digman said.

Two doors over, her weekend home neighbor Craig Ripple, from the Quad Cities, hoped a borrowed generator would help prevent the same thing from happening to him.

“I came up to get the stuff out of our freezer. We had a lot of meat in the freezer and refrigerator,” Ripple said.

Silver Spigot Saloon owner Anna Petersen, who was still trying to clean up after winds blew her bar’s carport and fence away, considered herself and her husband lucky they had power restored Monday night.

“I was very relieved. I said a prayer last night,” Petersen said. “Because we could’ve really lost a lot. And we didn’t lose any merchandise whatsoever.”

“You know, it is what it is,” Digman said. “We’re just going to clean up and go from there.”

Damage reports are still coming in from all over southern Wisconsin. In Grant County, about 20 homes and 30 farming buildings were destroyed.

In Green County, total damage estimates have reached $250,000, with damage to seven homes and even more farm buildings and crops.

In Iowa County, five homes were damaged by falling trees in the village of Linden, a farm was destroyed in Jonesdale, and one home was damaged in Hollandale.

Cassville, Lancaster, Platteville and Hollandale all issued emergency declarations as a result of storm damage.