'The whole church is covered in water': Greendale parish deals with Holy Week flood

 

GREENDALE, Wis. (CBS 58) – A hometown parish is resuming services just in time for Easter weekend after a flood earlier this week.

"I just kind of stood there for a second, and it was like, the whole church is covered in water," Father Kevin McManaman said.

Fr. McManaman is the pastor at St. Alphonsus in Greendale. He tells CBS 58 when he turned the lights on at the church Tuesday morning, he saw a pool of water inside the parish.

"Pretty much all the bowl, the flat surface at the bottom, was covered," he explained.

After the initial shock wore off, the reality of what this could mean for St. Alphonsus sunk in.

"In 48 hours, we're going to be at the start of the Sacred Paschal Triduum. The most important three days of our faith," he said. "Are we going to be able to have the Triduum?"

The church went to work right away, trying to get everything back to normal as quickly as possible for parishioners who are expected to fill their pews starting on Holy Thursday. They quickly called in a company to remove the water and set up dryers to help dry the carpet completely.

"This is the quietest this church has been since Tuesday morning," McManaman said.

It was a failure in the church's sump pumps that caused the flood Monday night.

"They looked at it. They said it's in good shape, but we have one piece of it that developed a fault," McManaman explained.

In 2011, a fire disrupted their Christmas Day services. This time, Mass will go on no matter what.

"I think it's a great miracle that really nothing terribly permanent has happened down here, that we know of," he said. "As far as we know, our organ is working. Our instruments are working."

While recovering their choir's practice room, where the sump pumps are located, is still a work in progress, McManaman said being able to celebrate the Triduum is a blessing for the church.