Infrastructure price tag over $50 million, as Vernon County dams hit hard

Houses are being cleaned, highways are being fixed and kids are headed back to school for a new year.

Western Wisconsin counties are returning to a routine after a week of recovering from severe flooding.

Many roads in the area, which had been damaged early last week, have slowly re-opened.

The price tag, however, for damage to infrastructure from the high water is already above $50 million, according to the state emergency operations center.

Sheriff John Spears of Vernon County says dams around the county could require expensive repairs between $4-6 million.

“We’ve had some critical damage to some of our dams. Vernon County has the largest number of dams in the state,” Spears said of the 22 dams. “And, we’ve had like 5-6 that have had failures. We haven’t had a dam failure in Vernon County since 1978.”

The weather service says the chance of more flooding still exists this week.