JANESVILLE — Janesville firefighters rescued multiple people from rising water, rescued an engineer from a derailed train and helped battle a house fire Friday night as a deluge of heavy rain washed down on the city.
Many suffered significant loss or have overwhelming damage and the community is hurting.
According to Janesville Firefighters Local 580, firefighters responded to an onslaught of calls in a very short time, which eventually lead to pulling Disaster Response Box Alarm.
Crews battled a fully involved roof on a farm house during the middle of a tornado warning with massive rain and flooding trying to block the way.
At roughly the same time, other crews performed a rescue of a trapped train engineer after a train derailed down a washed out bank.
More crews performed multiple water rescues of people trapped in quickly rising water.
Medical calls, smoke investigation, and several more less serious calls also had to be dealt with, and crews performed to the best of their ability.
The Local thanked all the area fire departments who came to assist with the fire and disaster response. Their assistance wasn’t only necessary, it was appreciated beyond words by our members.
Manhole covers are also missing and wading through seemingly shallow flood waters could quickly become life threatening. Stay out of the water.