Flooding disrupts life along the bay shore

OCONTO — The county’s director of emergency management told the Oconto County Board on Thursday that the problems caused by high water on the Great Lakes are going to get worse before they get better.

“I hope we don’t we don’t have ice shoves. I hope we don’t have flooding in spring, but the way it’s looking, and the projections of the Great Lakes, I don’t think that’s the case,” Tim Magnin said as he presented the latest five-year renewal of the county’s Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan Agreement with Bay-Lake Regional Planning Commission. “So we’re going to have to start planning hopefully to mitigate some of those issues beforehand and educate the public.”

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers met Oct. 18 with officials from the city of Oconto and the towns of Little River, Oconto, Pensaukee and Little Suamico to discuss flooding along the shores of Green Bay.

The group discussed flooding and erosion along the bay shore and the impact of high water on properties along the bay.

Afterward, officials announced a town hall meeting to alert the affected public about the predictions regarding the future of the bay shore for the next five months and educate home and business owners about how to respond to prevent life safety issues.

Magnin said it was clear at last week’s meeting that the engineers are concerned.

“They usually don’t give any advice as far as predictions or warnings, and they are now, and that’s not normal,” he said. “This is coming direct from the engineers, who are saying this is not a good thing and it’s not going to be pretty.”

Water levels on the lakes are at an all-time high, and residents got a taste of what could be in store Oct. 15 when high winds brought water coursing over the lake shore, closing Bay Shore Road near Oconto’s Breakwater Park and other shoreline roads.

“We were living on an island on Tuesday,” said Supervisor Rose Stellmacher, who lives on County Road Y in the town of Little River. “We were fine because we’re higher, but there were people who had to leave their residence because of the water.”

The county expects to receive a grant to update its Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan, which is due every five years and covers the response to disasters from high water to severe snow and wind storms. Federal and state funds account for most of the $25,620 agreement with Bay-Lake to develop the plan update.

Having a plan in place speeds up the process when requesting funds after disasters occur, such as the 30-inch April 2018 snowstorm or the windstorm that devastated northern Oconto County in July, Magnin said.

“We get everybody’s heads together, look at this plan and revise it,” he said.

The high water concerns will be addressed in the short term by actions like sandbagging and making sure evacuation plans are in place, Magnin said.

“What more can we do? We can’t build a dike tomorrow,” he said. “We want the public to be aware so they don’t get this false image that somebody’s going to save the day.”

Magnin also updated the County Board on talks with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to document the July windstorm damage. Oconto is one of 17 counties and two tribes declared eligible for disaster relief from the storm, which also spawned nearly a dozen tornadoes around the state.

FEMA hosted an exploratory call with the affected towns Oct. 16 to get the process started, and the affected departments were scheduled to meet Wednesday to start working on the necessary paperwork for reimbursement of cleanup costs, Magnin said. The next meeting with FEMA is scheduled for Nov. 15.

The city of Oconto is in the running for disaster funds related to the flooding and erosion isses, which is a separate event, he said.

Paul Ehrfurth, director of the Oconto County Economic Development Corp., reported that the federal Economic Development Administration has authorized a $587 million fund for areas that have been declared natural disasters in 2018 and 2019.

To qualify for the grants, local projects need to provide a community with resiliency to deal with future natural disasters, and there needs to be a job-creation component as well, Ehrfurth said.

The announcement has revived some interest in siting a hospital in the Lakewood area, he said. Under the EDA program, the county could apply for a grant to fund construction of a water distribution network to replace the many private wells in the area.

In response to a question from Supervisor David Parmentier, Ehrfurth expressed doubt that the program could be used to help bay shore homeowners if a disaster area is declared there.

“There needs to be an economic development, job creation component,” Ehrfurth said. “If somebody wanted to, for example, build a hotel out by the marina, that would be a job creator and that might qualify for something like this. But just to get the money for the resiliency won’t work.”