Abandoned

Taken on Granite Avenue, Reedsburg, Wisconsin.

For nearly two years, Granite Avenue in Reedsburg was suspended in a strange time, everything left exactly as it had been when the water finally pulled back after the June 2008 flood. As a reporter and photographer, I knew it was my job to constantly and almost obsessively stay on top of what happened on the street, with so many people forced into condemnation after the damage to their homes was too much. But for two years, it was the lack of what was happening that was the story. It's a cruel reality how our government moves at a snail's pace when getting around to helping those in need, but when The Man says, "jump," we're expected to say, "how high?" Anyway.

I hated it and was strangely drawn it it, for everything it was and for everything those houses stood for. I always felt like I was walking in a graveyard; everything felt quiet and still but with a strange energy bubbling through the service, like something was happening or about to happen. Maybe it was a mental anxiety, something in me screaming that something should be done.

Eventually it was. Eighteen houses and two commercial properties in the city of Reedsburg were condemned and torn down after the June 2008 flooding, displacing dozens of people, some who never came back.

This photo was one of hundreds I took for the Reedsburg Independent but this one in particular was never published.