Search underway for people missing from riverside homeless encampment since flood

Miguel Flores has been living under a bridge next to the Kinnickinnic River in Milwaukee for the past three years.

Most mornings, he goes to his sister’s house for a cup of coffee and a quick breakfast. 

But his family hasn’t seen or heard from the 59-year-old in two weeks after a historic rainfall hit southeast Wisconsin, causing widespread flooding in the area and quickly raised the level of the Kinnickinnic by more than 10 feet.

Now, his nephew Arturo Vazquez fears the worst. 

“At this point, we’re just trying to … even if he did pass away, try to recover his body,” Vazquez said. 

Homeless outreach workers in Milwaukee County are still looking to reconnect with a few people they believe may have been displaced due to the flooding from the storm. Outreach workers also say other people who are experiencing homelessness may have lost many or all of their belongings in the storm. 

MiniStreets Christian Urban Outreach meets weekly with unhoused people living under the bridge where Flores was staying. Donnalisa Hernandez, the co-founder of the ministry, said there are usually around five to eight people who live in that encampment. 

There are normally lawn chairs, a row of tents and a couch under the bridge. But the outreach group didn’t find anyone when they went to the encampment last week. 

“We looked under and saw that it was completely wiped out,” Hernandez said. 

The Kinnickinnic River rose from 6 feet to around 17 feet during the storm on Aug. 9 and 10, according to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report.

Vazquez said his uncle has a cell phone he’d use to contact his family. But every time Vazquez has called, it’s gone straight to voicemail.

“I’ve been strolling around, going around looking for him, and then we’ve been walking the river up and down, kind of whenever we get a chance,” Vazquez said.  

The outreach ministry is organizing a search party for Flores on Saturday. A spokesperson for the Milwaukee Police Department confirmed a missing persons report has been filed for Flores. 

There were two “drowning victims” found after the storm, according to the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s office. That includes a 48-year-old man who was found in Lake Michigan on the morning of Aug. 10 and a 72-year-old man who was found in the Kinnickinnic River on Aug. 13.

Hernandez said she knew both of the men from outreach events under the bridge. 

“They are considered drowning victims,” Timothy Schabo, operations manager for the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s office, wrote in an email. “We cannot confirm if they were from the flooding.” 

Hernandez said they’ve heard from other homeless people that two others who were living at that encampment did survive the storm. 

A few times a week, volunteers with Street Angels hand out supplies like coats, hoodies, tents, bottled water, underwear and shoes to homeless people living across the county. Eva Welch, co-director of Street Angels, said outreach workers are still waiting to hear from around seven unsheltered people the group normally encounters on its rounds. 

“There’s still some people that we’re not sure if they’re considered missing, or if they just moved from the area, or we just haven’t seen them yet,” Welch said. 

Welch said people who are homeless may have had little or no warning that the storm was coming. 

“It’s really hard to say whether or not someone is missing,” Welch said. “You know, we see them a few days a week, but sometimes we’ll see people sporadically.” 

However, Welch did say many of the people Street Angels connects with lost many or all of their belongings in the storm.

“When you take away absolutely everything, from the blanket that they might sleep with, to their identification … you know, they lost everything,” Welch said.

Eric Collins-Dyke, the assistant administrator of supportive housing and homeless services for Milwaukee County, said homeless outreach teams with the county started doing wellness checks in the days following the storm.

He estimated around 30 to 35 homeless people, many living near the Kinnickinnic River, lost all of their belongings from flooding. But in the past few days, Collins-Dyke said county workers have been able to reconnect with all the people they had already been in touch with before the storm.

Even so, Collins-Dyke said it’s been a difficult few days for many of the unsheltered people they look to connect to housing. Some people may have had to relocate to new areas and there may have been delays in connecting people to housing.

“I think the combination of all those things have made it incredibly difficult over the last week and a half for those we’re serving on the street,” Collins-Dyke said. 

Teams with the Federal Emergency Management Agency are currently on the ground in southeast Wisconsin to asses storm damage. Residents have filed more than 21,000 damage reports, according to the most recent Impact 211 data. More than 80 percent of those residents live in Milwaukee County.