Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Lake bursts bank and disappears: 'It was . . . full of life, now it's gone'
LAKE DELTON, Wis. - One of the most scenic getaways for Chicagoans is devastated.
Weekend rains of biblical proportions dumped so much water into Lake Delton that it literally burst its banks.
Tens of thousands of gallons of lake water barreled through the woods, taking with it a roadway, several houses, boats, fish and lake bed. It emptied into the nearby Wisconsin River and was gone in hours.
On Tuesday morning, some 24 hours after the catastrophe, the massive lake is nearly drained. The lake is a muddy moonscape of cracked earth. Fish bake in the sun, flopping until their deaths. Mounds of dead fish are piled high. The shoreline is jagged and cracked. Boats hang in the air suspended by what is left of the docks. In parts, the little water that is left meanders like a silent brook. The roadway and earth that held the river back is now a grand canyon.
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