A flood watch remains in effect through late Wednesday as yet another round of heavy rain travels across Wisconsin.
The National Weather Service says up to 6 inches of rain, or more, could fall in the area until the weather system begins to move away on Thursday. Wisconsin Valley Improvement Company is chartered to maintain a regulated water flow along the Wisconsin River and is based in Wausau. The Northwoods saw heavy rains beginning Tuesday morning.
WVIC Vice-President of Operations Peter Hansen says he had one report Tuesday of five inches of rain in the Hazelhurst area, and says they're monitoring the rainfall...
"....so what I'll be doing is contacting every one of our dam tenders in the Northwoods. I'll get an idea from them what they think the local rainfall is. Ask them to do a checkup on things. If we need to open up the gates more, we'll do that...."
Hansen says the reservoirs along the river are nearly full, so there isn't that much space to put excessive rainfall, but they are keeping an eye on the situation. During drier times, the reservoirs feed water into the river to maintain a flow...
"....in the Wisconsin River we can handle it. I would tell you five inches isolated near a dam could make things interesting, that's a lot of water and for the most part we were nearly full everywhere. It's been a wet year. It's not like it's dry and we're drawn down, so I think for the most part we should be able to handle it..."
The dams along the river were designed to help control flooding along with commercial applications like generating electricity.
