Vernon County activated its Emergency Operations Center, Sunday morning at about 9 a.m., in response to ongoing flooding and predicted continued rainfall.
Linda Nederlo, the public information officer for the Vernon County EOC, said that county officials had just confirmed the evacuation of residents from a trailer park near De Soto, Sunday, at 9:20 a.m. Also, county officials were in the process of issuing an evacuation order for residents living in the area of the Yttri-Primmer dam on the West Fork of the Kickapoo River in central Vernon County.
The county is in the early stages of compiling a list of roads that have been closed due to both flooding and mudslides.
The National Weather Service had Vernon County under both a Flood Warning and a Flash Flood Watch as of Sunday at 9 a.m.
Nederlo said long-range radar showed that Vernon County would experience showers Sunday morning, maybe get a brief period of dry weather, but then be hit by rainstorms again lasting through early Monday morning.
"The radar looks like there is a lot of rain headed our way," Nederlo said.
County officials are well aware of the dangers involved and work needed to organize flood relief efforts after dealing with widespread flooding in August of 2007. In August of 2007, Vernon County received anywhere from 6.5 to 11 inches of rain during a period of about 18 hours. This led to widespread flooding from Coon Valley and Chaseburg all the way to Viola. Gays Mills and Soldiers Grove also suffered significant flooding in those storms, which caused more than $60 million in damage locally. The storms led to Vernon County being among a group of counties declared both state and federal disaster areas.
Many of Vernon County's 22 flood control dams sustained damage in the August 2007 storms, but have not been fully repaired due to lack of money and time.
As for this weekend's ongoing storms, officials were still calculating how much rain Vernon County had sustained between storms on Saturday to Sunday morning, June 7-8. On Saturday, tornado warnings were declared from central Vernon County through the Hillsboro area. A funnel cloud with rotation was reported near Liberty Pole traveling through La Farge at about 6:10 p.m.
Nederlo said the Vernon County EOC would have more information available to the public as it becomes available.

