Sunday’s trip through the Indiana Flood of 2008

I spent Saturday, like most people in Indiana, checking TV reports to see all the flooding in Indiana. Although I live in Carmel, IN and we managed to miss the heavy rains on Friday night and Saturday morning, I also have a house on Sweetwater Lake in Brown County. Also, my parents and many friends and family live in Franklin, IN which got over 8 inches of rain Sat. morning.  I had heard from my folks on Sat morning that they had 2 feet of water in the road in front of their house, but managed to keep their house dry. I tried to call my neighbors down at the lake, but could not reach anyone. Could not drive down because the entire area was under a state of emergency and almost every road in that part of the state was under water and impassable. So, I just waited all day Saturday watching the news reports and hoping my house, boat, and little lake community had survived.

After a few calls we decided that maybe there were roads open that we could get down to the lake. We first stopped in Franklin, where we picked up my Dad and surveyed the damage to the area there. Many homes were under water and badly damaged, but thankfully, the water had already subsided. However, the yards and sides of roads were littered with wet carpet, furniture and other family belongings. Really a sad site to see. But there were people everywhere pitching in to help.

We pushed further south through Amity and US 31 was closed at SR 252. That was fine, as I usually turn there to head into Nineveh. We encountered Young’s Creek flooding through the SR 252 bridge:

Utility crews trying to clear trees off lines

Next we went through Nineveh, IN and had to skirt some road closed signs to reach Prince’s Lakes. This was as far as we could get on this road, the road was gone and they had it closed. We did get a few pictures of the busted East Lake dam and washed out road into the housing addition:

We turned around and headed back into Nineveh. Rumor had it that Peoga Rd into Peoga, IN then on to Sweetwater Trail may be open, so we tried it. It was open, but we could see the damage from the tornado that had hit the area a few days ago. This was the same one that hit Camp Atterbury and Edinburgh, IN. Here are a few snapshots of the Tornado area, looked a lot like someone just clear-cut through the woods:

Indeed it this route was all open all the way to Sweetwater Lake. We crossed the dam and had to drive through about 3-4″ water that was crossing the road on the beach side of the dam. Then up the road and down to my house.

I didn’t know what to expect, but fortunately, there was no major damage inside my house or out. A little water down in the lower level, but nothing major. I was most worried about the boat with the rising lake water. Since I don’t have a boat dry dock, I just tie-off to my dock and the boat floats. I keep it fairly close to the dock to keep if from bouncing in the wakes. However, when the water level rises, the boat is secured to the dock and essentially the boat gets pulled under water as the water rises. This was the case and the boat would be under water now if not for my neighbor. The dock, which normally is about a foot above the water level,  was about 3 feet under water. Joe, who lives down there full time, managed to untie the boat and let it pop to the surface, where it sits now. When we got there the water had gone down and was only about a foot above the docks. See the pictures below:

I will have some deck clean up to do as soon as the water drops to normal, but considering in the span of less than a week we had a tornado and almost 11″ of rain in the area, I think I am pretty fortunate. However, the weather forecast is calling for 1-3″ of more rain on Monday and Tuesday.

Who pissed off Mother Nature?