People in Big Bend are trying to save their homes after the Fox River went over its banks.
About a half dozen homes just off County Highway L and Riverside Street in the village are affected. The National Weather Service said the Fox River crested in Waukesha and recorded the river at seven feet above flood stage downtown.
Waukesha County remains under a flood watch until Tuesday.
Watch: Big Bend neighbors working around the clock with sandbags and pumps to save their homes
Homeowners said conditions changed quickly. On Friday, residents were cutting their grass. By Saturday, the docks went underwater, and by Sunday, neighbors were fighting to save their houses.
"We started building sandbags, and we kept building them," Jason Kuschewski said.
Kuschewski said his friends brought him pumps and helped sandbag over the weekend.
"It is going into the basement part, but we are fighting it. We have pumps going," Kuschewski said.
One neighbor has already lost the fight against the rising water.
"That one, it is in the house already; it is a total loss. That guy is gone," Kim Gerth said.
Neighbors are working around the clock to keep pumps running.
"We have to check the pumps and make sure the sump pumps are still working. And some of them you actually have to start and stop manually. So you have to be up 24 hours to make sure they work," Gerth said.
While there is no official river reading in Big Bend, neighbors used a stake to track the water level, and said it went down slightly today.
"It is nice to live on a river sometimes. Not today," Kuschewski said.
"It is terrible," Gerth said.
"You just have to keep going," Gerth said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with theassistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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