WATER WATER EVERYWHERE

Well...last week was a wild one to say the least. It began Tuesday night with a big weathermaker that came up from the south with a ton of rain in it. Flood watches went up the day before and everybody knew it was going to be a big one. That first night it began raining and raining hard. With the ground already saturated from the big snow just a week before the water had nowhere to go but the lowest places and eventually into the creeks and rivers. That meant problems for Blue River at Milltown, Indiana, who has seen more than their share of big floods.

The creeks came up fast and started dumping their load into Blue River that night. It didn't take long before the water began to spill over the banks and into the town. People hurried to get what they could out of their homes and businesses as the water came up close to a foot an hour at one point. By noon some of the homes were feeling the affects but the bad thing was more heavy rain was on the way, especially Wednesday night where 3-4 inches of rain was expected to fall. There was talk of the 1959 flood when water reached up to the local post office. One thing was for sure. It was not going to be a good night.

The picture to the left was taken on Wednesday and I put it here to give you an idea of how it got later that afternoon. Try to imagine the water just inches from the top of the very top rail. What happened late in the day had many people going, "Oh wow!!" With the water at the rail several witnesses saw a massive sycamore tree coming at the bridge with its root system aimed right for the bridge. The tree slammed into the bridge with a thundering boom then amazingly stood straight up from the water pressure. The water kept it up until its weight brought it down on the other side, slamming back into the water. I can only imagine how big some of the eyes got as they watched this happen in real time.

The next morning brought a thick fog to the town that resembled something out of a Stephen King movie. By 10 am it finally burned off and people began to see just how far the water had risen. Mother Nature did give the town a break, bringing the water up to the front of the town hall just down from the post office. As the water began to recede home and business owners came in to see how much damage they had to deal with. For some it wasn't too bad but for one man who had started some remodelling work it cost him 40 sheets of drywall he had stored inside the house. Most of the homes had anywhere from 2 to 4 feet of water to deal with. One little business, Castaways, was pretty much damaged beyond repair with one of its Coke machines somewhere well down the river. One thing the people did start doing was cleaning the mud out while it was still wet.

This last picture is something I've seen done twice now. Some of the houses and buildings had to have their electricity either turned off or on to start their cleaning as the water began to fall. That meant tripping breakers at utility poles. So what do you do if the water is too deep to wade in? Well you take a boat out to the poles to have it done. I have to admit to being a little nervous as I watched this worker from Duke Energy trip this breaker. The thing is you just never know what the water might do at the time. You never know if the current will change of if a sunken log might bump into the boat. This worker, however, looked like he had done this before as he calmly (well, he looked calm anyway) tripped the breaker off to a nearby mini-mart. No problem.

The water finally went down to where people could get in to clean things up. I headed for the house to first get some gas and then to get a bite to eat.....or so I thought.....but that comes next....