Advertisement According to state Department of Emergency Management, Interstate 90-94 east at Highway 82 in Mauston in Juneau County is closed, as is Interstate 39 south at Highway 82 in Marquette County and Interstate 39 north at 39-90-94 and Highway 78 in Columbia County.
In Sauk County, one of the hardest-hit areas, Highway 12 is closed from Highway C to 159 near the Badger Army Ammunition Plant and Highway 113 also is closed in that area.
"People are advised not to go -- period -- if they can at all help it," said Robert Spoerl, emergency management representative form the state Department of Transportation about traveling to the Baraboo and Wisconsin Dells area.
The state doesn't have an estimate for how long these portions of Interstate will be closed.
"Everything is touch and go here," Spoerl said.
A line of storms brought heavy rain and several tornadoes to southern Wisconsin on Thursday, drenching and further damaging a region already battered by last weekend's storms.
Grant, Sauk and Columbia counties were among the worst hit as the front moved northeast at 45 to 55 mph, bringing wave after wave of rain, funnel clouds and flash floods that inundated homes and roads with water.
"We have massive amounts of property damage," said Julie Loeffelholz of Grant County Emergency Management. "We have reports of homes with feet of water in the basements. "
Four homes were destroyed in Grant County, Loeffelholz said, three by flash floods and one, a trailer, by a tornado near Lancaster. No injuries were reported.
Roads were also flooded throughout Grant County, and the Grant River rose a staggering 8 feet in two hours at Burton, about 100 miles southwest of Madison, the National Weather Service said.
The Madison area largely missed out on the most severe storms until about 5 p.m., when tornado sirens rang out because of a pair of systems moving northeast -- one through Belleville, Oregon and McFarland and the other through Mount Horeb and Cross Plains.
The National Weather Service said a tornado touched down about 10 miles southwest of Oregon; no damage was reported. Dane County Sgt. Kerry Porter said no roads in the county were closed as of about 7:30 p.m. Thursday, although deputies were reporting high winds throughout the county. His office also had gotten several calls from the public about funnel clouds.
Ducks to the rescue
Farther north in Sauk County, where it rained heavily throughout the day, amphibious Ducks from the Wisconsin Dells were brought in to evacuate people from their homes near the overflowing Baraboo River.
Two people also had to be rescued from their car on Highway 12 just south of the entrance to Devil's Lake State Park after becoming stranded in high water.
Still, despite the heavy rain, water levels in places such as LaValle and Reedsburg appeared lower than earlier in the week.
National Weather Service meteorologists said about 3 inches to 4.5 inches of rain fell in about two hours in a band from Lancaster, in Grant County, extending northeast into Fond du Lac County. About 2 inches fell in an area from Green County northeast into Dodge County.
"It was two heavy bands of thunderstorm after thunderstorm," said Chris Kuhlman with the weather service in Sullivan.
"We didn't expect them to train like this," he said. "We were at least initially thinking the cold front would be pushed a little bit faster through, but that didn't happen. Basically, it caused thunderstorms to develop and redevelop over the same areas. "
Thunderstorms continued overnight but cleared up today. Even without more rain, however, water will continue to rise in many waterways due to runoff, Kuhlman said.
Other tornadoes
Tornadoes were also reported in Green County three miles south of Brooklyn and in Green Lake County in Markesan, the weather service reported Thursday evening.
Sites of other tornadoes reported but not yet confirmed, according to the weather service, included:
Columbia County between Pardeeville and Friesland.
Dodge County southeast of Mayville.
Sheboygan County near Haven.
Grant County north of Platteville.
Dane County between Cambridge and Stoughton.
Dane County several miles southwest of Cambridge.
Sandbags on the way
To address the ongoing flooding, Wisconsin Emergency Management has ordered 200,000 more sandbags, which are arriving today.
In Jefferson County, where the Rock River had not yet crested in Jefferson and Fort Atkinson by late Thursday afternoon, more than 100,000 sandbags have been distributed, with another 70,000 expected to arrive today. Many streets and roads were closed in and around Fort Atkinson, Jefferson and Waterloo and in the towns of Ixonia, Oakland and Koshkonong.
The river at Jefferson was expected to crest Saturday night, and in on Fort Atkinson as late as Monday, suggesting more problems to come.
FEMA tours area
Thursday's severe weather came as officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Small Business Administration fanned across southern Wisconsin to gauge damage from heavy rains, tornadoes and floods earlier in the week.
The teams checked out damage, gathered information on how many people were insured and got a sense of how taxed state and local resources have been, FEMA spokeswoman Hannah Vick said.
The damage assessments are a first step in the process of declaring a federal disaster.
Gov. Jim Doyle will use the information to bolster a request for a federal disaster declaration from President Bush, which would free up grants, low-interest loans and other forms of assistance.
State inspectors also have moved swiftly over the last 48 hours in the areas affected by the recent flooding to look over all of the so-called high-hazard dams, which are the dams considered to have significant numbers of people or properties below them, said Lee Sensenbrenner, spokesman for Doyle.
Since last August's flooding, all of the high-hazard dams in the state have been inspected, he said.
The Red Cross said that after Thursday's storms it was taking several steps to deal with the latest damage, including opening shelters in Baraboo to help people fleeing flooding and staying in contact with state emergency management officials as the Crawfish and Rock rivers continue to rise.
Some of the areas hit hard last weekend and last August dodged the latest rounds of storms.
In Gays Mills, which has been under water twice in the last 10 months, the grocery story was open and floodwaters had almost completely receded.
"It looks a lot better when you can go down Main Street," Village President Larry McCarn said.
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