PARDEEVILLE — Highway 22, which rolls into main street Pardeeville, may have been lost but for quick thinking by fire and public works officials and back-breaking labor.

Water from overflowing Park Lake was eroding the highway, Pardeeville Director of Public Works David Tracey said Tuesday.

Volunteers made a canal over the road with sandbags, diverting the unwanted water from downtown businesses, halting the erosion and saving at least one building, Tracey said.

In addition, the man-made channel eased the pressure on the hydroelectric dam a few yards away, Tracey said. "We couldn't have done it without an army of volunteers," he said.

A few blocks away, David Pounders was pumping out the basement of his home, surrounded by water that overflowed from a pond at the end of La Follette Street.

This is the third time he's been flooded in the 20 years he and his family have lived there, he said — 1993, 2004 and this weekend. "I think this is my last year," said Pounders, who works at Oscar Mayer in Madison. "We've had enough."

Students load sandbags

COLUMBUS — Seventh-and-eighth graders from a Portage charter school spent their semester-end "fun days" filling sandbags to blunt the force of the swollen Crawfish River.

Eighteen students from River Crossing Environmental Charter School plus teacher Victoria Rydberg and a handful of River Crossing alumni worked side-by-side Tuesday in downtown Columbus with local firefighters, volunteers and inmates from two state correctional institutions.

"The whole school is here," Rydberg said.

Among them was Tyler Halatek, 14, an eighth-grader from Reedsburg who is confined to a wheelchair. Halatek ferried sandbags back and forth on his lap, exchanging repartee with his 16-year-old sister, Amanda, and other students.

Rydberg said the students were supposed to go camping Monday and Tuesday, but she said Jeff Nania, executive director of the Wisconsin Waterfowl Association, asked if the students would come and load sandbags instead. "I went to the class and they voted to come down here and give up their fun days," she said.

Rydberg said the students often do community projects such as planting trees, building trails and restoring prairies. "They worked like dogs on Monday and voted to come back Tuesday," Nania said. "We're proud of these kids."

Jarrett Roethke, 14, Poynette, said the students were there to help.

"It's good to have the community come together," said Roethke.

Hard work saves dam

FALL RIVER — School is closed until Monday, but the levee is holding and "nothing was ever in critical condition," Fall River Police Chief Brent Van Gysel said Tuesday.

Still, volunteers and public works employees are credited with saving the village's dam with sandbags, weed cutters, saws and sweat.

"We were this close to failing last night," said one dam worker, holding his thumb and forefinger close together.

State engineer Robert Davis, who was inspecting the dam Tuesday afternoon, said the people who worked through the night breaking up debris in the water, cutting weeds and filling sandbags made the difference. "Any obstruction of flow would have caused the water to increase," Davis said.