Waterlogged: Shiocton copes with flooding as the Wolf River exceeds 13 feet

SHIOCTON - Butch Bunnell has been monitoring water levels on the Wolf River since 1971. He's seen his share of flooding in the past 48 years, but the overflow of the banks is particularly noteworthy this spring.

"It's the highest I've ever seen it," Bunnell told The Post-Crescent on Tuesday.

According to the National Weather Service, the Wolf River reached 13.6 feet at Shiocton on Tuesday morning. Flood stage occurs at 11 feet.

Bunnell, who serves as Shiocton's fire chief and emergency management director, said East Avenue and Oak Street were closed to traffic between State 76 (River Street) and Second Street because of high water.

A section of State 187 north of the village was covered with 10 inches of water.

At the Riverside Pump-N-Munch convenience store on State 54, water surrounded the gas pumps, preventing customers from filling up. The business was still open, though.

Bunnell said the village was holding its own against the flooding. Volunteers came together on Easter Sunday to fill sandbags in preparation for the inundation.

"Residents here have learned to live with it," he said. "Right now, the appropriate areas and homes have been sandbagged."

Outagamie County Emergency Management provided the village with two disaster trailers equipped with sump pumps. Deputy Emergency Management Director Paula Rieder also delivered two bales of sandbags.

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Rieder said driving through the village was "a little challenging" Monday afternoon.

"There was a lot of water — water up to the backs of buildings," she said. "Now we don't typically panic unless Butch (Bunnell) starts to panic. When he panics, then we know that they're in trouble. I think they're still under control at this point."

New London also was coping with high water.

Police Chief Jeff Schlueter said two right-turn lanes on the south side of the Shawano Street bridge were shut down. Water was crossing Woodlane Drive on the east side of the city.

"We're grateful that we didn't get all of the rain that went south of us last night," Schlueter said. "We're hoping that over the next few days it lowers a little bit with the nice weather, but we're still expecting some runoff from the north."

Ryan Koenigs, a fisheries biologist with the state Department of Natural Resources, described the water levels on the Wolf River as "extremely high." He was checking for the lake sturgeon spawning run, which began Monday at the Sturgeon Trail in New London and was expected to start Tuesday at Bamboo Bend in Shiocton.

"The water is at bank level or above the bank at many of the spawning locations, which is much higher than I've personally seen over my 12-year career working with this resource," Koenigs said. "The high water may impact how close spectators can get to the river and how visible the fish are, but it's still worth the trip in my opinion."

Water levels also are higher than desired on the upper and lower Fox River and Lake Winnebago.

All of the gates at the Menasha dam and all but two needle gates at the Neenah dam have been open since March 15. Lake Winnebago, though, continues to rise from the influx of spring rains and the melting snowpack in northern Wisconsin.

Chad Shaw, chief of Fox River operations for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said opening the last two needle gates in Neenah is reserved for extreme circumstances.

"When we open those two needle gates, we experience immediate flooding impacts to several industries — the paper mills right there in the area and the ThedaCare hospital — along with making the conditions worse downriver, specifically the Stroebe Island area and the village of Wrightstown," Shaw said.

The Army Corps warned that the high flow of the lower Fox River from Neenah-Menasha to Green Bay may create hazardous conditions.

"All users are asked to exercise extreme caution when on or near the river and especially near the dams," the corps said.

Contact Duke Behnke at 920-993-7176 or dbehnke@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DukeBehnke.