Patty Loew:
One year ago, torrential rains ripped through one of Wisconsin's favorite tourism destinations. Since the 1920s, visitors have been boating on Lake Delton. Last year the main attraction, the lake itself, left town leaving the boats behind. "In Wisconsin" reporter Art Hackett was there the day the northern wall collapsed, draining the manmade lake. Now Art returns to that community as it begins the first tourism season after they put the lake back in Lake Delton.

Art Hackett:
Matt Oefter has been driving ducks down the Wisconsin river for 15 years. The legends, the lessons and possibly some of the jokes he tells are as old as the Dells themselves.
Matt Oefter:
This point is also well-known for wedding ceremonies. I personally would never want to get married of sunset point because I would always remember my marriage starting out on the rocks.

Art Hackett:
As the ducks take to the water in 2009, Oefter has a new story to tell. The tale of the torrent of 2008.

Matt Oefter:
It did rise about a foot above normal. It found a low spot in the lakeshore line. It did fine its way to the river. It eroded the soil taking everything with it. Trees, houses and a 264 acre lake known as Lake Delton, all washed down into the Wisconsin river.

Art Hackett:
This is where Lake Delton gave way in June of 2008. The houses that people all across America saw dropping into the water used to be right back there. The land is now part of a new stretch of Sauk County highway A. The old embankment was so wide few realized it was a levy. The new embankment, reinforced with a deep wall of clay, clearly looks the part. Nearby the dam, which created Lake Delton, has been rebuilt. New spillways will rapidly drain away any future downpour. All this work took less than a year.

Wally Bochenczak:
Remarkable from my standpoint. I was here -- I left for a couple of days and the water was basically at the end of that pier and 48 hours later, a little longer, it's up to the wheels. I would anticipate in another three, four, five days we'll be up to normal lake level.

Art Hackett:
We first met Wally a week after the lake drained.

Wally Bochenczak:
We have lost probably 75% of our business. We've got free water park passes, amusement passes. It is not what my guests look for. They're coming to be on the lake, period.

Wally Bochenczak:
Every call we've had this spring, first thing they ask, is the lake back? Now we tell them it's back.

Tom Diehl:
Starting out when Tommy first opened the show in 1953 it was water, water, water, skiers, skiers, skiers, every ad. Looking back I guess I understand why they didn't attend.

Art Hackett:
Tom Diehl who runs the Tommy Bartlett water show has also been waiting for the water to return. He tried to keep the show going without water and without much success.

Tom Diehl:
No matter what you told people that the lake was going to be here, seeing is believing. Just around this community when they started on Highway 12 looking down and seeing water there it was just a tremendous morale booster.

Art Hackett:
As opening day approached skiers started practicing routines, Diehl says this year's show will be more of a production than in years past. Fitting the stunts into a story line.        

Tom Diehl:
We hired a very talented individual from Florida that do a lot of consulting work for major theme parks to write a new script for us because we wanted to open up 2009 with something we had never done before.    

Art Hackett:
It's a fitting follow-up to a natural catastrophe of the sort that likely never happened before, an entire lake draining away in a matter of hours. A year later, people are trying to put Lake Delton back together. Room by room, show by show, fish by fish. The DNR and local sportsmen's groups aided by a Wisconsin brewery are teaming up to restore the lake's fishery. They begin with minnows, full size fish from upstream will be added later this summer. Village trustee and former DNR fish manager Gordy Priegel says creation of rock spawning beds will allow the lake to eventually grow its own.

Gordy Priegel:
There has been no reproduction in the lake, so hopefully this is going to change things.

Art Hackett:
Things may change faster than you would suspect.

Scot Stewart:
When I've worked on other restorations, normally walleye would be 7 or 8 inches in the first fall after being hatched in the spring. I've seen them grow as 12, 13 inches in that first summer where you don't have a fish population. There is so much food in the water that they've got an unlimited food supply.

Art Hackett:
One year later Lake Delton is back, no longer will visitors be asked to watch the return of a tourist attraction. They'll be able to see the attraction itself, Lake Delton.

Patty Loew:
Restocking Lake Delton will take time. There is an international fundraising effort called the Lake Delton Fisheries Restoration Project. To find out more go to our website wpt.org/inWisconsin.