FEMA, state officials
seeking solutions

FEMA and state emergency management officials are very concerned about many counties - such as Jefferson, Richland, Rock, and Sauk - still fighting devastating flooding.

Related items ... from 7/17/2008 Web edition: • Diocese responds to flood victims • Sidebar: Diocese responds to flood disaster • Audrey Fixmer Column: Looking for the rainbow • Editorial: Dig deep to help flood victims from 6/26/2008 Web edition: • Lake Delton flood victims • Sidebar: How to help the Fromms • Agriculture damage sustained • Sidebar: Relief collection to be held • Editorial: Flood victims -- Don't forget them after the water recedes from 6/12/2008 Web edition: • New Since the Print Edition coverage

We asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Geological Survey to send hydrologists to look for possible solutions to the problem of standing water. Water tables will remain high as long as rivers remain above flood stage, which means the surrounding ground cannot absorb more water, so pumping is ineffective.

The Wisconsin Recovery Task Force has been created by the governor and the president to establish priorities for the long-term recovery of this state. This will involve both short and long term solutions not only to alleviate immediate needs, but also to lessen the repetitive losses we suffer throughout the state. Wisconsin is resilient. Ten times in the past 10 years the state has endured a major flooding disaster.

The aftermath always brings life, love, and growth.

Hundreds of disaster workers and volunteers have rallied to this state to fight for her recovery. More than 400 of these tireless workers wear the dark blue FEMA shirts. They have been on foot and at desks at least 12 hours every day since the storms, doing everything the law allows to help the families and communities of Wisconsin climb out of the mud.

They have come up with innovative ways to solve problems that are not covered in disaster recovery guidebooks. For example, applicants whose homes are inaccessible have received rental assistance checks without a damage inspection. They may continue to receive housing assistance even if their homes remain inaccessible by calling the FEMA helpline. Rental help will be available on a renewable basis for these families until their homes can be inspected and further disaster assistance can be approved.

FEMA and Wisconsin Emergency Management will stay the course. When the water subsides, some of us may find ourselves in a different home, but it will be a good, solid, Wisconsin home.

Dolph Diemont is the federal coordinating officer for the Wisconsin Disaster Recovery from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Johnnie Smith is the state coordinating officer for Wisconsin Disaster Recovery from the Wisconsin Emergency Management.

Election season:
A time for 'faithful citizenship'

		Eye on the  Capitol  John Huebscher

July 8 was the deadline by which anyone interested in running for county, state, or federal offices in 2008 must file nomination papers to be certified for a place on the fall election ballot. Thus, the campaign season is underway.

This means Catholics focus anew on the ongoing responsibilities of their vocation as "faithful citizens." This vocation involves several responsibilities. First, we need to reflect on the state of the world in which we live. This means we consider the problems, opportunities, and challenges facing our communities, our state, and our nation.

This in turn leads us to identify those issues and policy questions that can change for better or for worse the conditions and environment that influence the common good locally and globally. Then we need to assess those seeking office to discern if their talents, capabilities, and policy priorities are a good fit for the offices they seek and the issues they will confront.

Most of us will be studious observers. Some will be active participants as candidates, campaign workers, and shapers of opinion. These caring men and women deserve our thanks for their involvement in our political system. We may not agree with them. Indeed, we may vote against some of them. But whether or not we support them or their views, we need to recognize that our system of self-government would not exist without them.

Educational materials

For our part, we at the Wisconsin Catholic Conference (WCC) will provide educational and formational materials to help Catholics who want to reflect on how their faith and the political issues of the day intersect. The materials include a nine-week series of bulletin inserts. The series covers the main points found in the U.S. bishops' 2007 statement Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility from the Catholic Bishops of the United States.

Four of the weekly inserts discuss the principles of Catholic social doctrine and their application to the political sphere. Two inserts also explain the importance of developing a well-formed conscience. The materials in this series cannot answer every question or probe every issue of concern to faithful citizens. However, they will offer a place to start.

These materials also include a copy of the WCC Guidelines for Church Involvement in Electoral Politics. These Guidelines remind diocesan and parish leaders that sharing information about issues and Catholic teaching is encouraged. So is sponsorship of voter registration drives and candidate forums that are open to all candidates for a given office.

The Guidelines also emphasize that church facilities and resources may not be used to support or oppose candidates in any way. The Guidelines reflect the bishops' belief that the activity of persuading voters to vote for a specific candidate is for laywomen and laymen, not clergy and Church officials. While this persuasion is encouraged in the public square and in door-to-door conversations between voters, it should not take place on church property or in parish bulletins.

We at the Wisconsin Catholic Conference hope you find the materials we provide useful and that they will help make Catholics among the most informed and most engaged citizens in this election year.

John Huebscher is the executive director of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference.

Looking for the rainbow

		Grand Mom  Audrey  Mettel Fixmer

"God, what are you telling us?" I cried as I stared in disbelief at the torrential, unrelenting rain that slammed against my patio door for the third day in a row.

With my washer spinning dry a fifth load of towels and the dryer humming with the fourth load, I was stomping up and down on the sixth batch of towels, sopping up yet more rain from my poor carpet in front of the patio door from the hillside.

In my 80 years of living I had never experienced any rain of such magnitude. I found myself thinking: "Biblical Proportions!" It was like watching something out of a Cecil B. DeMille movie. I expected to see Moses or even Noah, for crying out loud!

All in the same boat

Related items ... from 7/17/2008 Web edition: • Diocese responds to flood victims • Sidebar: Diocese responds to flood disaster • Column: FEMA, state officials seeking solutions • Editorial: Dig deep to help flood victims from 6/26/2008 Web edition: • Lake Delton flood victims • Sidebar: How to help the Fromms • Agriculture damage sustained • Sidebar: Relief collection to be held • Editorial: Flood victims -- Don't forget them after the water recedes from 6/12/2008 Web edition: • New Since the Print Edition coverage

That was on Sunday, the first day I was alone. The two previous days my wonderful daughter-in-law, Carson, was there with me doing the heavy work: moving patio furniture, taking up the outdoor carpeting, using a shop vac to slurp up some of the water inside, and "shoveling" out the mud and mulch that had washed down from the hillside.

We sat together in my bathroom until the tornado warning lifted. Then it was back to the living room, only to see that all her "preventive" work was in vain. The latest deluge had washed everything back to the patio again and we had to start mopping up all over.

All of this drama had taken place while her husband, my son Tim, was at their lake home in Wisconsin on the phone and computer overseeing the moving of his Cedar Rapids, Iowa, downtown office to dry ground. With the Cedar Rapids reports coming in steadily on the TV and later the devastation in Wisconsin, my own little problems paled into insignificance. So many were far worse off then I.

When the fourth day of rain came, I was prepared. Two nice men from the county came and built a wall of sandbags on the edge of my patio. Within five minutes after they left the next deluge came. I thanked God for my good fortune. No more water on my carpet.

Search for answers

Still somewhat dazed in the aftermath, I ventured downtown on Tuesday. There I ran into Len, an old friend recently retired from his post as principal of our parish school. When I innocently asked, "Where have you been?" it suddenly dawned on me: his home was on Blackhawk Island, flooded! Len produced photos he just had developed. One showed him in a boat approaching his home and another his beautiful new kitchen with water nearly up to the countertop. "I had just finished remodeling," he said sadly.

How do you respond to something like that? My parting shot was, "I think God is trying to tell us something."

"I just wish I knew what it was," he called back over his shoulder.

Lessons learned

I keep thinking about that. Len and everyone else who suffered great losses says the same thing: "People are wonderful. Everyone pitched in together to get us through."

The other common denominator is the flood victims all shrugging off their own losses and saying, "They are only things. We are safe, at least."

So the two things that come out of this are the appreciation of community working together and the new perspective on the relative importance of material things. Is that what God is telling us?

Pondering the "Biblical Proportions" finally sent me to the Bible to reread the story of Noah. Yes, it tells us in Genesis, 6:11: "Meanwhile the crime rate was rising rapidly across the earth and, as seen by God, the earth was rotten to the core" (The Living Bible).

Wow! Those are strong words. Of course, the story goes on to tell how Noah was "the only truly righteous man living on the earth at that time." So God instructed him how to build the ark and save the pairs of animals and his own family. Then the Bible describes the flood . . . 40 days and 40 nights worth. Worse than ours!

The part of the story I like best though is the promise that God made after the waters subsided. Genesis 9:8-16: "Then God told Noah and his sons, 'I solemnly promise you and your children . . . that I will never again send another flood to destroy the earth. And I will seal this promise with this sign: I have placed my rainbow in the clouds as a sign of my promise until the end of time.'"

Whew! Let's keep looking for that rainbow!

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