Walker Declares State Of Emergency In 3 Counties After Storms, Tornadoes

Gov. Scott Walker declared a state of emergency in Grant, Green and Dane counties on Friday. The three southern Wisconsin counties were hit hard this week during storms that spawned nine confirmed tornadoes.

In the emergency declaration, Walker directs all state agencies to assist in response and recovery.

Tod Pritchard, spokesman with Wisconsin Emergency Management, said the cleanup efforts so far are going well, but that there’s still a lot left to do.

“A lot of the areas are going to take a while. Verona, obviously, (there’s) a lot of cleanup going on over there. But at Country View School, they already had contractors there to start to clean things up and start the reconstruction work,” Pritchard said.

From late Monday night and early Tuesday morning, separate tornadoes spun through Platteville, hit homes and an elementary school in Verona and tore roofs off homes and downed trees in Madison.

George Dreckmann, a spokesman for Madison’s Streets Department, said that crews there have been hauling away over 200 tons of brush a day since Tuesday’s storm. He said that’s meant some overtime.

“Our crews have been working 10-hour days in the field doing collection and also at our processing site grinding material. But, we anticipate that next week, we will not be working overtime,” he said. “But, we have assigned a lot of extra staff to the brush removal process, and we anticipate that will continue for at least another 10 days to two weeks.”

The governor’s emergency declaration also allows for the Wisconsin National Guard to be called to active duty if necessary to assist with recovery.