“We prepared for the worst,” MFD Deputy Chief Ron Firnrohr said. “As it rained the numbers of calls for help went up exponentially.”

The department had two dive units ready to deploy throughout the night, with four swift water trained firefighters on each unit.

“They were going from call to call to call,” Firnrohr said. “The team would monitor what locations we went to, what we found when we got there and what the resolution was.”

Oscar Santiago lives on the south side of Milwaukee and had flooding around his neighborhood near 6th and Oklahoma.

“You could hear people screaming like stop, stop,” Santiago said. “They just turned around but two or three got stuck right in the middle.”

The fire department plans to have even more staff ready for Friday night with more potential rain in the forecast.

“The ground is so saturated, there’s nowhere for this water to go and we want to be prepared for it,” Firnrohr said.

The department is planning to bring together staff from the police department, public works, county emergency teams, and more to create an in-person command center.

“The likelihood in the city of Milwaukee is we will get some sort of unit to you quickly that can assist in your evacuation,” Firnrohr said.