Business owners and residents evacuated from downtown Beaver Dam Saturday are getting an opportunity to return today to remove items and check on their properties.

Meanwhile residents of Haskell Street, who also were evacuated, were allowed to return after power was restored to their homes. Alliant Energy and the city had inspected the homes and determined they were safe enough for occupants to return.

Much of downtown will remain closed to traffic until Tuesday morning. Road closures include Front Street from Spring Street to Beaver Street, Center Street from Maple Avenue to Rowell Street and Madison Street from South Center Street to Rowell Street.

Fire Chief George Sheets said that those who want to return between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. on today should contact the Beaver Dam Fire Department at 887-4609.

In addition, the fire department has clean-up kits available from the American Red Cross.

Officials will meet with those who have been evacuated at the Beaver Dam Fire Department at 5:30 p.m. on Monday.

FEMA inspectors were in Dodge County today and will visit Fox Lake and Beaver Dam as well as other areas for an initial inspection of damage.

In the Fox Lake, the dam was reinforced with sandbags over the weekend and County Highway P beneath the dam was closed after water damaged the road. Some homes around the lake had experienced flooding.

During a meeting Sunday afternoon, Beaver Dam officials said flooding is expected to continue to affect downtown at least through this week.

According to Sheets a rise in the level of Beaver Dam Lake and the Beaver Dam River led to the evacuations The water breached a portion of the sandbags, but that breach was fixed. In addition, water levels were reaching the height of the Beaver Street Bridge.

The south side of the 200 block of Front Street as well as the west side of the 100 block of South Center Street were evacuated Friday after Alliant Energies disconnected power to the buildings. Water had flooded the basements of most of the buildings.

On Saturday, businesses on the south side of the 100 block of Front Street were evacuated. Those evacuations included apartments above some of the businesses.

Sheets said that there were concerns about electrical service in the area and the structural condition of buildings that had water in the basement for a number of days. The city was going to take an initial look at many of the buildings today.

In a matter of a few hours Saturday, downtown Beaver Dam went from being packed with traffic and pedestrians trying to see the historic flooding, to an eerie silence.

The evacuations and power outage were a hardship for a number of businesses downtown. Among those with the biggest challenges were The Italian Connection and Park Plaza Pizza. Power outages meant they had to pack up and move food in coolers and freezers.

At the Italian Connection, Fred and Lila Miller, with their children and friends, filled boxes with food bound for Total Logistics Control, a cold storage warehouse on the north side of Beaver Dam.

"Its been difficult," Lila Miller said as she labeled the food boxes.

Others grabbed pets and pet food, coolers full of food and laundry baskets of clothes.

At L&W Music, electronic equipment was piled up on shelves and countertops and owner Ken Gillett said he was going to grab a briefcase and leave.