DARLINGTON – Long before climate change became a global concern, this small southwestern Wisconsin community knew it had to do something to deal with persistent severe flooding. Bev Anderson remembers 1950, the year the floodwaters of the Pecatonica River rose quickly around the buildings of downtown Darlington, leaving her stranded. The floods rose halfway up Darlington's main street after a particularly heavy rain, flooding basements, damaging businesses and risking the lives of the people who lived and worked in the city's small downtown. "The Alliant Energy men strung a rope from one building across to another because the current was so bad," she said. "And we all went across holding on to that rope to get out of there."