The second-to-last day of the Wisconsin State Truthful opened amid sweltering warmth.
The uncomfortably sizzling situations persevered all through the morning and afternoon of Saturday, Aug. 9, providing little trace of what was to come back.
At 6 p.m., the primary clue arrived when the sky started to look “possibly somewhat overcast,” mentioned John Yingling, chairman of the Wisconsin State Truthful Park Board of Administrators.
After that, issues escalated shortly: “By 6:30, it had began to rain, and by 7, it was raining big-time,” Yingling mentioned.
Within the hours that adopted, a deluge of historic rainfall left fairgoers splashing, wading and even swimming by rising floodwater as they tried to depart the State Truthful Park. The tunnel between the fairgrounds and the Milwaukee Mile was flooded for hours, and the truthful in the end canceled its final day.
However why did the State Truthful Park appear to flood so quick? Officers provided a couple of totally different solutions: the truth that Honey Creek runs below the truthful park; that pipes carrying the creek have been ill-prepared for a storm of such magnitude; and that the drains across the fairgrounds have to be upgraded.
Here is what officers mentioned concerning the flood danger on the State Truthful Park and the way they’re working to handle it.
The truthful’s flavored milk is situated close to an entrance and exit. The Wisconsin State Truthful Park Basis Milk Home gives totally different flavors of milk yearly.
Plans to revive Honey Creek pipes have been underway earlier than State Truthful flooding
Even earlier than the flooding, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District was conscious that the culverts carrying Honey Creek below the State Truthful Park weren’t designed for a storm as intense because the one which hit Milwaukee earlier this month, Kevin Schafer, the district’s government director, instructed the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Put in within the Nineteen Sixties, the culverts have been constructed for a 10- to 25-year storm, not a 1000-year occasion like the town noticed between Aug. 9 and 10, Schafer mentioned.
“[During the storm], I am certain these pipes have been flowing full and possibly overwhelmed, after which, identical to the whole lot else within the space, they stuffed with water,” he mentioned.
Since late 2023, the sewage district has been working to rehabilitate the pipes in case of a climate occasion like this month’s storm. The 4 culverts, that are 9.5 toes tall and 14 toes huge, run below the Exposition Middle, the Milwaukee Mile and the car parking zone.
Nevertheless, the mission was paused in June to permit State Truthful preparations to get underway, Schafer mentioned.
He anticipated, as of Aug. 21, that crews would start work once more quickly and mentioned that the mission is on observe to be completed by 2026, earlier than subsequent 12 months’s truthful.
The Wisconsin State Truthful has been held in West Allis since 1892.
“We constructed excessive of Honey Creek,” Schafer mentioned of the park. “That is often not a really sensible factor to do, however…now, we’re simply sustaining the infrastructure that is there.”
Overwhelmed drains additionally led to flooding, State Truthful says
MMSD has been focusing its efforts on restoring the Honey Creek pipes, however Yingling mentioned he would not assume the creek was the principle drawback for the park through the storm.
“What we imagine is all the drain capability within the State Truthful and fully surrounding State Truthful was simply overwhelmed,” Yingling mentioned. “And I believe we noticed that in West Allis, actually noticed that as properly in Tosa.”
Schafer mentioned that the overwhelmed drainage programs had additionally probably contributed to flooding on the park.
Since 2020, the State Truthful has been working to interchange the underground infrastructure across the park, notably close to Central Mall and north and center Grandstand Avenues, Yingling mentioned. As a state company, the Wisconsin State Truthful Park has to get approval from the State Constructing Fee for any construction-related mission, he mentioned.
“Anyplace the place we have been in a position to exchange infrastructure, issues labored fairly properly,” Yingling mentioned of the storm. “There are areas of the park that we do must proceed to improve by way of infrastructure, which is water and sewer.”
By 8 a.m. Aug. 10, the morning after the storm, Yingling mentioned the fairgrounds have been largely again to regular, besides for 2 areas that also had standing water: the manure pits, which slope downward, and the tunnel between the truthful park and the Milwaukee Mile.
Sara Braun, left, and Emma Crave stand by their cows on the Wisconsin State Truthful on opening day, July 31, 2025.
State Truthful distributors can be answerable for their very own flood harm prices
General, Yingling mentioned the fairgrounds emerged comparatively unscathed from the flooding: not one of the barns flooded, so all of the animals have been safely contained through the storm, and there was no structural harm to the truthful park, apart from a couple of leaky roofs.
Nevertheless, with its closing day canceled, the truthful fell below its normal of its million-plus attendees for the primary time since 2021. Many distributors missed out on essential final-day gross sales, undercutting their revenue for this 12 months’s truthful.
State Truthful distributors are additionally answerable for securing and insuring their very own property — which means they are going to be answerable for their very own flood harm prices, Yingling mentioned. He mentioned he hasn’t heard of any vendor having a complete “washout” of their items.
Jessica Jerky, proprietor of Appleton-based All Issues Jerky, mentioned she thinks it is “comprehensible” that distributors must pay for damages themselves.
“I did not assume the State Truthful would ever be answerable for vendor harm,” she mentioned. “I figured from the start we would be on our personal.”
Her uncommon meat stand was close to South Grandstand Avenue, one of the closely flooded areas. For her and different close by distributors, she mentioned the lack of final-day gross sales was an even bigger hit than property harm — although one among her employees did have their automobile flood within the vendor parking space.
“We’re simply making an attempt to do the most effective we are able to,” Jerky mentioned. “You possibly can’t plan for a pure catastrophe, and so far as the truthful is worried, they’ve carried out what they will.”
This text initially appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Why did the Wisconsin State Truthful Park flood so shortly?
