Several owners of property damaged or destroyed when a shoreline breach drained Lake Delton in June have filed a notice of claim indicating they may sue village officials.

Tim Fromm, whose five-bedroom house was shown on a widely seen video collapsing into the lake, said he and the other claimants have enlisted multiple experts to determine what went wrong.

"We will prove that this was 100 percent avoidable and that the village of Lake Delton was extremely negligent in terms of operating the Lake Delton dam that led to a permanent taking of our property," Fromm said.

A notice of claim is the required precursor to a lawsuit against a government entity.

Village President Frank Kaminski said Thursday he didn't want to comment. "Right now, you have one side (of the issue)," he said.

Village attorney Richard Cross couldn't be reached for comment. Attorney Kim Grimmer, who is representing the property owners, didn't return a phone call.

Fromm said the claimants represent nearly all of the lots and homes that were destroyed June 9 amid heavy and prolonged rain in much of Wisconsin. Although the Lake Delton dam held, a section of the sandy shoreline elsewhere on the lake didn't, creating an outlet to the nearby Wisconsin River. The entire man-made lake drained, taking structures and land with it.

Fromm said the dam was to have been built to withstand a 1,000-year flood. To do that, the dam's floodgates should have been able to rise six feet to let water through, he said. Instead, they could only be raised four feet, he said.

Also, Fromm said the village was no longer taking part in the federal flood insurance program as of 2001 because of a dispute with the government over the elevation of the village's 100-year flood plain. Consequently, homeowners such as Fromm weren't able to buy federal flood insurance.

"Do you know how much it would have cost the village to actually participate in the flood insurance program? Zero," Fromm said. "It was free of charge."

Don Kubenik of West Allis, another of the property owners, said he and the others have every intention of following through with a lawsuit.

"The attorney is building his case," said Kubenik, who lost his vacation home and its furnishings.

Fromm, who lost his primary residence, said he won't be seeking damages beyond the value of his land and other property.

"We just want to get out what we put into it," he said. "Nothing more, nothing less."

He said the other claimants are Tom and Tina Pekar, Jim Lemke, and Vickie and Stephen Reuther.