2008: Flooding like Vigo County had never seen before

June 08--A decade ago this week, thunderstorms deluged west-central Indiana, forcing many Vigo County and Wabash Valley residents to flee their homes.

The year of 2008 was a perfect flood in the making, with heavy rains hitting the state early in January and February and then again in the spring.

But the first nine days of June would bring flooding not seen before in Vigo County and across Indiana.

On June 9, then President George W. Bush declared a third of Indiana's counties disaster areas because of record flooding over the previous weekend. The declaration was made after then Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels requested a major disaster be immediately declared, making Indiana counties eligible for direct federal aid.

Eventually, 44 Indiana counties were declared presidential disaster areas.

Interstate 70 was closed in Clay County and Interstate 65 and U.S. 31 were closed near Franklin. Ninety percent of Paragon, a town southwest of Indianapolis, was under water.

From a bird's-eye view, Terre Haute in areas such as the intersection of 7th Street at Springhill Drive had streets covered in water. Creeks flooded and damaged roads.

The June floods were both severe and widespread, with substantial, and in some areas record-setting, flooding and damage occurring in Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and South Dakota.

Indiana had the most recurrent flooding during 2008, with peak-of-record stream flows occurring during January, February, March, June, and September, according to the National Weather Service.

Since that flooding, efforts in Vigo County have been made to shore up areas along Honey Creek, while the state of Indiana has established a wetland park area along the Wabash River, and county emergency management officials are now part of a statewide system that daily monitors weather and can immediately request state assistance should such an event occur again.

Heavy rains, already wet ground

A 2016 graduate of Purdue University and now a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Indianapolis, Andrew White was about to enter his freshman year at Terre Haute North Vigo High School in 2008.

"I remember driving around and seeing a lot of roads underwater that I had never seen underwater," White said. "There was a lot of flooding. It was a big deal."

Vigo County already had high rainfall levels in February, March and April in 2008, White said.

The Wabash River crested in Terre Haute at a near record level at 25.14 feet on Feb. 10, 2008. The record is 27.38 feet set on Jan. 16, 2005, White said.

But months of above average rainfall meant soils and the water table were already high when thunderstorms hit Vigo County in early June 2008 White said.

On June 4, a storm dropped 1.16 inches of rain. That was followed on June 6 with another 1.45 inches.

Then June 7, thunderstorms seemed to pause overnight across Vigo County, dumping 5.38 inches.

"It was the third heaviest one-day rain in Terre Haute," White said. But in earlier instances, he said, the ground wasn't saturated.

Then Terre Haute was hit again June 9, with another 1.9 inches of rainfall.

"That meant in 24 hours from June 6 to June 7, Terre Haute got 6.83 inches and for the whole month of June, Terre Haute got 13.32 inches, which is three times the average for the month," White said.

"So in 2008, storms directly hit Terre Haute with some of the heaviest rain, which also hit Clay and Vermillion counties. The storms just poured and poured and poured."

While Terre Haute was hard hit, White said areas east and south of Vigo County had larger amounts of rain, including a single-day record for Center Point in Clay County, which had 9.5 inches on June 7, 2008. Shakamak State Park near Jasonville got 5.89 inches, while Farmersburg was close to Terre Haute, getting 5.3 inches on June 7, 2008.

In Owen County, Spencer was hit with 9.8 inches of rain between June 6 and 7, according to the National Weather Service.

All that rain flooded creeks or rivers, such as the Eel River in Clay County and Honey Creek, Sugar Creek and Otter Creek in Vigo County. That water then drained into the Wabash River, which quickly flowed south.

"The water downstream hit Vincennes, which had its fourth largest crest (of the Wabash River) at 27.5 feet," White said.

'I started saying my rosary'

In Vigo County, rains quickly swelled Honey Creek in southern Vigo County.

It was something Judith Barad, who retired as a professor of philosophy from Indiana State University in 2015, vividly recalls.

"I woke early in the morning, probably about 4 a.m., on June 7 (2008). I went into the kitchen to get some iced tea. My feet were wet, so I turned on the light and saw that our living room had several inches of water in it at that time," Barad said. "It had been thunderstorming all night."

She went to tell her husband, German Andrade, who said, "Oh it is probably just the kitty, probably just peed. I said no, no, -- you've got to get up," she said.

"We saw water rushing in from two sides of the house," Barad said. Her husband, Barad said, tried use a wet vacuum to remove water, but the effort was futile.

"It started to really rush in," she said.

The ranch-style home on Sullivan Place had no basement and no second floor. However, it did have a room that was elevated by three steps. The couple woke up their 11-year-old grandson, who was staying in the house, and moved to the higher room.

She then called 911 and dispatchers said "they would send a boat out. The water by now was well over a foot deep in the house."

"My grandson was really scared, as I was. I can neither swim nor float," Barad said.

"I had to act brave for my grandson's sake. I called 911 again and explained to the dispatchers the situation, who said they were really busy and told me to get up on the roof. I was 59 at the time. My husband is 7 years old then I am. The water, I am sure, would knock down a ladder, so I don't know how we are supposed to get up on the roof," Barad said.

"My husband said we had to leave. By then, the water was high and wasn't just trickling it, but was really rushing in," she said.

After opening the garage door, the couple saw that nearby Honey Creek "had turned into a lake. There was water all around us, we didn't see any dry land," Barad said. "I was terrified."

She then called dispatchers again and was told a boat was coming. She told dispatchers they were leaving in her husband's Jeep, but was told by dispatchers not to drive in the water.

"When we walked into the garage, the water was up to my hip and my grandson's waist, Barad said. "There were things floating in the water. I am a Catholic, so I started saying my rosary."

Driving over a nearby bridge, water was lapping over the bridge, she said. The couple was able to get out of the flood area and stayed with their daughter. They later stayed in a hotel and then grad student rooms at Indiana State University.

Barad said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) came to the house after the flood and assisted. The couple, she said, received $20,000 from the federal government. Then, in August 2008, they were able to stay in a FEMA trailer until reconstruction began on their home in October 2008.

"FEMA said 85 percent of our house was destroyed," she said. "We had to rebuild everything, get new furniture and my car was underwater, so we had to get a different vehicle. too."

"The Red Cross was great and fed volunteers who came to help twice a day and fed us. The Salvation Army also helped us out," she said, as did Operation Blessing, an international non-profit humanitarian organization.

Barad said her property and the surrounding land now is designated as a flood zone, requiring flood insurance, something Barad said she hopes to never have to use.

"I am still am traumatized by the creek, especially during a long hard rain, but I am so grateful to all the people who helped and I learned that God will see you through everything" Barad said.

Getting home

Vigo County developer Rick Jenkins remembers being in Paducah, Kentucky, in June 2008. After learning of the flooding back home, he quickly returned to Terre Haute.

"I was about three and a half hours away and I came home in about two and a half hours," Jenkins said.

But when he hit southern Vigo County, "all the roads where closed and you could not go any direction without being barricaded," he said.

Jenkins owns International Village Apartments, where he said 170 of the 267 units were impacted by flooding. Homes and businesses along Honey Creek were among the hardest hit.

"For anyone that was involved in the flood, they don't know all what they lost," Jenkins said.

"Even the next year, you would go to get a tool out of your garage, like a pair of hedge clippers and, well, you can't find them because you didn't realize they were lost in the flood. Individuals lost stuff they had for years. It is like a fire, except with a fire you are insured and many people in the flood were not insured," Jenkins said.

"What I remember the most is that people came together and helped each other. People came from their churches, people from out of Terre Haute came in and helped with clean up," Jenkins said. "The community came together throughout, from the north side to the south side of town."

A reworked flood system

Jenkins is also president of the Honey Creek Conservancy District, which had started on a new flood levee system in 1990, designed to help control swelling of Honey Creek and protect homes and businesses. However, that project was not fully completed in 2008.

A year later, the conservancy district was awarded federal funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly called President Barack Obama's stimulus package for shovel-ready projects. The district had designed its third phase, called Phase C, in 2005, but lacked funding to start.

The federal funds would cover a large part of the more than $6.5 million final phase, of which more than $2.7 million came from taxpayers in the Honey Creek Conservancy District. It included an earthen levee, concrete flood walls and reconstruction of Springhill Road.

Officials in July, 2012 celebrated the completion of the 16-year long project that constructed 13.3 miles of levee along Honey Creek. The final construction portion had ended in September, 2011. The entire project, including construction and land acquisition, cost $11 million, paid with local and federal funds. Phases A and B, which included channel relocations for Honey Creek, were completed from 1995 to 2000.

"We built the levee system to accommodate a 100 year flood event. We had a 500 year flood in 2008," Jenkins said.

"We are now in a better position than we were in 2008," Jenkins said of the completed levee project.

"What is the chance of that happening again? I don't know. Things happen. But, before that flood, we had a week of rain before and the ground was saturated and we had a levee dam break out by Riley. A whole lot of things happened and not just in Terre Haute, but across Indiana. We got inundated with a lot of water that we have never, ever seen, at least not in my life time or anyone who was 100 years old."

Additionally, since 2008, the Honey Creek area has been aided from the construction of McDaniel Road, linking to the Indiana 641 bypass, Jenkins said. The project re-routed and improved drainage that should help the Honey Creek Conservancy District, Jenkins said.

For the past two years, the conservancy district has been under contract with Christopher B. Burke Engineering LLC, which is conducting a complete study of the levee to ensure it meet all federal specifications. "We are in the last phase of that, as it is a three year project to do all the testing," Jenkins said. "They will then go to FEMA to get our levee certified."

The benefit of that certification, Jenkins said, is it may lower homeowner insurance and possibly remove the requirement of having flood insurance when obtaining a mortgage. Jenkins said the district would still recommend a homeowner have some type of flood insurance, but it may be at a lower cost after the study, he said.

Changes along the Wabash River

In 2008, residents of unincorporated Dresser, located adjacent to the Wabash River's western edge, used sandbags as they battled to keep water out of homes.

A decade later, the majority of the river side homes are gone, with Vigo County officials now undertaking a long-term plan for a new public park named Bicentennial Park.

One big change is the removal of the 14-acre site that housed the former Bud's Auto Salvage. That property was sold to Vigo County in February, 2017, said Kevin Gardner, who owned the business, started in 1990, with his father.

"In the flood of 2008, we lost about 120 cars that were submerged. Any time a vehicle is submerged, you can't sell anything electrical, can't sell the transmissions, the motors, the starters or alternators, so basically they were scrap. I figured that to be about $120,000" in losses, Gardner said.

County officials had previously sought the property for about 10 years, Gardner said.

"We had talks as recent as about six years ago for what it would take to relocate, but because of the nature of a salvage yard, it is not easy to do, trying to get permits and property. It ended up being too expensive, so the county just dropped it," Gardner said.

But the salvage property flooded a few more times after 2008. That is what Gardner said led him to seek new negotiations with the county and the property was sold.

The county also obtained an additional 12 acres in Dresser from Gardner with funds from the state's Bicentennial Nature Trust in an effort to convert the area into a park.

"This area makes more sense to be in a passive recreation state without improvements," said Vigo County Attorney Michael Wright said. "This area was decimated in the 2008 flood.

This being directly adjacent to the river, it is definitely an area that is at a high risk if we have another event like that 2008 flood again. A lot of people who lived in there did not want to go through that again. The county and West Central Indiana Economic Development District tried to make it sensible for them to move somewhere else," Wright said.

The county, from 2010 to 2014, used funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to obtain and remove about 10 homes, Wright said.

Additionally, Wabash Valley Riverscape obtained many lots from Dresser property owner Larry McCullough and donated the land to the Vigo County Parks and Recreation Department, Wright said.

In 2010, former Gov. Mitch Daniels announced a major land conservation initiative, with the state to begin acquiring 43,000 acres located in the flood plain of the Wabash River and Sugar Creek in west central Indiana that will benefit wildlife, public recreation and the environment. The area, which follows 94 river miles along the Wabash River, stretches across four counties from Shades State Park to Fairbanks Landing Fish & Wildlife Area south of Terre Haute.

The state would use $21.5 million from the Lifetime License Trust Fund, a state trust fund dedicated to conservation purposes, and $10 million from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to begin the acquisitions.

It led to the establishment of the state Wabashiki Fish & Wildlife Area. The 2,700-acre Wabashiki is smaller than Eagle Creek Park (3,900 acres) but larger than Fort Harrison (1,700 acres).

Learning from the past

Vigo County Emergency Management Agency is responsible for the coordinating and handling of emergency response to man-made or natural disasters that may occur within the county.

After the flood, the agency in 2009 moved from its offices at 934 S. Fourth Street to a newer facility on the 181st Air National Guard based at Terre Haute Regional Airport.

"It makes logical sense for logistics. When all else fails, we can get C-130 aircraft here and this (airport) is where they would land. It is the best distribution point in the county," said J.D. Kesler, deputy director of planning and public information for the Vigo County EMA.

The agency in 2009 also became part of the state Web Emergency Operations Center, which allows the agency to request state assistance -- anything from firefighters to medical assistance to heavy equipment such as tractors.

"Several things have changed since the flood of 2008. I think communications, not just between local agencies, but between the state and county agencies and by the same degree, between the state and federal, is better with the Web EOC. We open that daily, and it gives us a constant picture of what is going on in our eight-county region, but also statewide and, sometimes, nationwide," Kesler said.

"The good thing that probably came out of the 2008 flood is the way we work together as public safety agencies, and it showed us the real need to work as a public safety family, across the divisions whether HAZMAT, fire, EMS or law enforcement," Kesler said.

Kelser said Vigo's EMA has also since "developed a volunteer cadre in our emergency communications team. They meet monthly and participate in all of our training activities at various levels and our exercises and drills. These are all ham radio operators and volunteer in other areas like K-9 search and rescue or community response teams."

The county has about 30 volunteers who have been screened with background checks to work in emergency situations, such as the 2008 flood, Kessler said.

'Terre Haute' for good reason

The 2008 flood also taught Vigo EMA to pre-stage delivery of empty sandbags, most commonly to fire departments. "We formulated a plan with the county highway department on where sand goes and there is a process," he said. Central Dispatch reports on areas in need of bags delivery of sand is then coordinated with the highway department, Kesler said.

"One other thing we learned and implemented since 2008 is the pet issue. There were so many pets that were put out of place and families get attached to them. We developed a large animal rescue team," he said. That includes a team that can use a large heavy plastic skid or sled to remove animals stuck in mud.

"In 2008, Vigo County was like a doughnut," Kesler said. "Much of the city of Terre Haute was spared a lot of the impact, but out in the county, around the city, it was hit hard. Honey Creek south to the Wabash River and Otter Creek had big issues, and [so did] Sugar Creek.

It was like a doughnut event, so the early settlers called the city 'Terre Haute' -- meaning high ground -- for a good reason," Kesler said.

Reporter Howard Greninger can be reached 812-231-4204 or [email protected]. Follow on Twitter@TribStarHoward.

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