Seven inches of rain in four hours: This week marks four-year anniversary of massive flash floods

MILWAUKEE (WITI) -- This week marks the anniversary of the massive flooding of 2010. Four years ago, the skies above Milwaukee opened up -- dumping seven inches of rain in just a few hours. That caused some of the worst flash flooding residents have ever seen -- and the city of Milwaukee and other municipalities continue to work on ways to stay dry if that much rain ever comes again.

Four years may pass by in the blink of an eye, but the memories of July 2010 haven't left.

Seven inches of rain fell in just four hours.

"It just kept raining and raining. I didn't know it was going to get like that. I've never seen it like that before," Calhoun said.

Hardest hit areas included Shorewood, Glendale and along Lincoln Creek.

Four years ago, Carl Calhoun could only watch as the water spared his home, but took his neighbor's.

"That one that is boarded up down there. There's one next to it that is torn down. The next day it was all gone," Calhoun said.

The water came and left the city with a job: Try to find a way to minimize the damage caused by flash flooding.

Calhoun doesn't live far from the 30th Street Corridor Project -- which could include transforming vacant industrial space into green space capable of soaking up flood water.

"To a normal eye, it would look like a linear park. So it would be a green, low area that during these storm events would have water running through it," Kevin Shafer with MMSD said.

Another idea being floated is using the basements of condemned, city-owned homes for storm water runoff.

Though, it's fair to say there isn't much any city can do to prevent flooding like we saw four years ago, in July of 2010.

The July 2010 flooding caused damage to thousands of homes -- at a cost of more than $30 million.