Sometimes the best experiences arrive when you least expect — and most need — them. In 2018, Tamara Dean, from the Driftless Writing Center in Viroqua, Wisconsin, asked if I would serve as the “humanities expert” for an idea they were dreaming up. Called “Stories from the Flood,” it developed into an ambitious, community-based project to collect and share stories about catastrophic flooding in the Kickapoo River and Coon Creek watersheds.
About the scholar
Caroline Gottschalk Druschke is an associate professor in the Department of English. She directs a research group working at the intersection of public engagement and natural resources management. Through the study of rhetoric, they build critical theory and conduct social and ecological research and public outreach about stream restoration, migratory fish passage, trout conservation, wetlands restoration, watershed-based agricultural outreach and coastal storm impacts.
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They hoped to help flood-affected residents process their trauma, while creating a historical record to inform future planning and support community healing. I immediately pledged my support.
As a tenured professor 15 years into work on community engagement, public discourse, and freshwater management, I have relevant expertise. But this ongoing collaboration is a constant reminder I’m not the expert when it comes to the human impacts of flooding.
Community members lived through 2018 flooding and so many floods before.
After multiple 100-year floods in the last decade, there is little relief in sight; climate forecasts predict this pattern will intensify. In Vernon County, 2018 flooding caused an estimated $29 million in damage—an average of almost $1,000 per person – to businesses, homes, and infrastructure.
Residents need help, but the “Stories from the Flood” archive is filled with creative problem-solving, selfless generosity and deep resilience.
My job is to show up and listen; build relationships to understand what community members need and want; and leverage university resources to support those needs.
I’m so grateful they’ve welcomed my students and me along for this work, and I hope I’m giving back even a fraction of what this experience has given me.
This essay originally appeared in the Wisconsin State Journal’s Fueling Discovery section on May 4, 2020. Fueling Discovery is a special partnership between the Wisconsin State Journal and the College of Letters & Science.