BROOKFIELD, Wis. (CBS 58) -- George Wessel has a few contractors to call. Along the walls of his basement is a little more than a foot of drywall cut out at the bottom. The carpeting has been removed from the entire level, and the bathroom will need a large-scale restoration.

The most significant losses, though, are impossible to accurately assess. Wessel, 86, pointed to the mementos and photos from trips he'd taken over the years with his wife, Marlis. 

"Having lived in this house for 35 years, did a lot of traveling with my wife, taking a lot of pictures that meant a lot to us over the years," he said.

Marlis died in February, not long after the couple's 60th anniversary. Wessel smiled when he looked down at one treasured photo still intact; it was of Marlis shortly after the couple first moved in together on Milwaukee's north side in the early 1960's.

It was a brief distraction from the renovations Wessel will have to coordinate with the help of his two adult children. He suspected the total cost of the repairs will exceed $10,000, far more than what he was able to receive from his insurance company.

"It'll cover some of it," Wessel said. "But I anticipate not nearly enough."

From the outside, though, it'd be impossible to know anything went wrong in this subdivision unless you happened to be around Shamrock Lane Friday when a FEMA assessor joint state and local emergency management officials for a survey of the area.

Waukesha County Emergency Management Coordinator Alex Freeman said it was important for survey crews to follow up in areas where there was a heavy concentration of damage reports filed through 211 after the historic flooding that submerged much of southeast Wisconsin on August 9.

Survey crews went door to door in Brookfield, Butler, Elm Grove, Menomonee Falls and Muskego, taking inventory of what homeowners lost and indications of how severe the flooding was.

"Any way they can confirm the damages," Freeman said. "So, they might be looking for a water line at a certain height in the basement. They might be checking the status of utilities in those residences."

Freeman said preliminary estimates from local assessments found about $95 million worth of damage to private properties and between $4.2 and $4.4 million in damages to public infrastructure.

"That's based on 211 reports," he said. "That's based on the damage assessment team's work, the local damage assessment team, not the FEMA team."

Freeman said the FEMA crews will be in the county until at least Tuesday of next week. When their work in the region wraps up, they'll submit a report to Wisconsin Emergency Management, which will then share the findings with Gov. Tony Evers' administration.

Evers can then request a federal disaster declaration from the Trump administration.

In the meantime, Freeman said homeowners should know even if they haven't submitted an incident report, they can still request FEMA aid if a federal disaster is eventually declared.

Still, he noted it can only help to have submitted a 211 report and a claim with their insurance company.

Many of the locations FEMA visited over the last two days were based on the findings made by local crews.

"Utilities that have been destroyed; hot water heaters, furnaces, HVAC and electrical all damaged." Freeman said. "We've had folks that had water lines all the way up through the basement to the first floor."

Those reports led crews to a subdivision along the Menomonee River in Menomonee Falls. Robert and Sue Waters showed a basement now awash in the loud hum of industrial fans.

They were lucky to have most appliances survive the flooding, but their dryer and exercise equipment are all gone. Robert Waters was hopeful an insurance rider for sewage backup the couple added after extensive flooding in 1997 would cover most of their losses.

"As you can see, we don't have a lot of stuff outside, like all these other places. We took our stuff to the dump already because it started to stink so bad," Waters said. "We're still digging, the damage, but it's gonna cover most of it, yes."

Freeman said he expected a different FEMA crew to arrive in early September; that one will focus strictly on reports of damage to public property.

From there, a similar but separate process will play out with the Evers administration needing to request another federal disaster declaration seeking aid for local governments.