TROUBLE IN THE BARABOO BLUFFS. Rock Springs, Wisconsin, which is home to the "pink lady" ballast quarry as well as to a little-known horseshoe curve on the Chicago and North Western, is under seven feet of water. The nearby Mid-Continent Railway Museum, home to one of the better collection of nineteenth-century wooden coaching stock in the country, is closed until further notice. The museum has suspended internet connectivity to its webcams to conserve bandwidth, with online photo galleries illustrating the extent of the flooding. As of yet, the museum has not reported any washouts or other severings of the line. Although the Wisconsin Dells Ducks are not making any excursion trips into Lake Delton, they are doing emergency service in nearby Baraboo.

Original Wisconsin Ducks are in Baraboo tonight helping rescue people from homes and businesses due to flooding of the Baraboo River. General Manager Dan Gavinski says he received a call from Sauk County authorities around 4:30 p.m. today requesting assistance from the amphibious Ducks. Gavinski says several of his crew members immediately boarded their Ducks and went to Baraboo. Within 20 minutes they were in Baraboo beginning to evacuate residents from their homes and businesses. There are about 8 Original Wisconsin Ducks in Baraboo helping.

As of 7:30 p.m., Gavinski reported that his Ducks and 3 ducks from another company had already taken several dozen people from their homes. Each of the World War II-era Ducks can carry about 20 people. The Ducks are retrieving people and evacuating them to a parking lot near Circus World Museum. From there, local authorities have arranged for buses to shuttle the evacuated residents to Baraboo’s downtown square. In one case, a Duck was used to go back and rescue a person’s dog.

“This kind of operation is exactly what these unique vehicles were made for and we are glad to be of help in Baraboo’s time of need,” said Gavinski. “But we need this rain to stop.”

This is the second time this week that the Ducks have been called into action. On Monday, as local authorities and volunteers struggled to save Lake Delton, Original Wisconsin Ducks were asked to come in to help remove debris from the Dell Creek Dam so it would not clog. Gavinski says his crew members used tow ropes to pull boat piers and other large pieces of broken up wood from the dam. The efforts worked and the dam stayed in tact.

The authentic Ducks were originally built by General Motors for World War II. Known for their rugged attributes, able to travel over land and water, Ducks were lauded by WWII leaders for their versatility. The Ducks finest hour came on June 6, 1944, when more than 2,000 Ducks shuttled troops and supplies to hard-to-reach areas for the D-Day invasion on the beaches of Normandy, France. It was touted as the greatest amphibious operation in history.

The Original Wisconsin Ducks is the largest fleet of amphibious tour ducks in the country with 90 ducks. The tour has 60 Ducks that shuttle visitors in and around the scenic waterways of Wisconsin Dells. The remainder of the fleet is in storage to use in future years.