MILWAUKEE — A partially flooded road along North Grant Blvd in Milwaukee was just a small example of what areas across the city looked like after debris and trash blocked sewage drains and basins which left excess rainwater in the streets.
"They were pretty flooded this morning," said one Milwaukee resident, Andrea Bailey.
Bailey was just one of many drivers maneuvering through the streets of Milwaukee Wednesday after overnight rainstorms caused significant flooding throughout the city.
"Taking the kids to school, it was kind of dangerous," said Bailey. "I ended up being able to get around, but my son who has a smaller car, I did advise him to take a different road."
Following the storm, Kurt Sprangers, the engineer in charge for the city of Milwaukee, says more than 200 complaints about street flooding were made to the Department of Public Works.
"It was a considerable issue this morning. It remains a considerable issue," said Sprangers. "We expect to be out tonight, through the evening hours, and probably back out again tomorrow as more calls come in."
Sprangers says the amount of snow the area has gotten over the last few weeks is one of the main factors for the flooding.
"The ground is already pretty saturated and then you get these additional rain events on top of that, all that water is running off to the streets."
In addition to staffing shortages, DPW officials say street cleaning crews had a late start to removing trash and debris from the roads because of the winter storms.
"The force of those storm events caused a lot of debris that was already on the streets to migrate to the catch basins and caused a lot of clogging," said Sprangers.
To prevent flooding in the future, Sprangers is reminding the community to pick up their trash to help keep the streets as clean as possible.
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