FLOOD ANNIVERSARY: Lessons learned from record 2018 event

Feb. 16--GOSHEN

When the National Weather Service issued a flood warning for Goshen Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2018, nobody seemed alarmed. After all, the initial warning called for an Elkhart River flood level of 8.7 feet on the 22nd, a stage that would close a block of Chicago Avenue and cover Rogers Park with muddy water and cause a headache for the parks staff tasked to clean up the mess. City residents had seen those minor floods many times before.

But Mother Nature had more in store for Goshen and the water rose quicker and higher than expected, ending with a record Elkhart River level of 12.49 feet the next day, the 21st. The flood left homes and businesses in west Goshen filled with water.

"It was a significant, historic flood all across northern Indiana," said Sam Lashley, senior meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in North Webster.

Back in 2018, Lashley took a look at the Goshen-area flood up close.

"Driving around the county and seeing just where the river was, was very eye opening," he recalled.

Now Lashley uses the data from that flood for presentations to weather scientists and others.

He explained that two moisture-laden air masses came together over northern Indiana back in Feb. 18 and dropped a record four to six inches of rain across the region in three days.

"At South Bend they measured 5.61 inches," Lashley said, "which was more than twice the previous rainfall in any month of February."

The rainfall was also the heaviest in a three-day period for any month since records began being cataloged in the early 1900s, he said.

But the rainfall was only part of the flooding phenomenon. In the week before the rain fell, the ground around Goshen was covered in 10 inches of snow. Lashley said the snow would release 1 to 1.5 inches of water when melted. And melt it did.

Temperatures soared, reaching a balmy 59 degrees Jan. 15. Some Goshen residents walked about without jackets for a couple of days and kids missed school because of heavy fog, according to Goshen News records.

When the snow cover melted, Lashley said, the water it released saturated the ground and began raising the levels of local creeks and the river. So when the record rainfall arrived a few days later the ground could not absorb any more moisture.

And, because the moisture arrived in the middle of February, there was no vegetation to absorb it and mitigate the runoff.

The local geology had been primed for a big flood.

DAMAGE DONE

When the river's water rose, it impacted more than 300 city structures, 179 of which were residential and 119 of which were owner-occupied, according to city officials.

Dave Kollar is the owner of one of those structures.

Kollar spent the days following the flood trying to salvage his inventory and repair damage at his business, Casper's Coin and Jewelry along Pike Street.

About six inches of water seeped into the retail store.

"We didn't think it would get to the back of the store, but it did," Kollar said Friday. "People were amazed at how high it got in the short amount of time."

He said damage cost him $30,000 because he did not have flood insurance. His inventory was impacted and he had to replace the store's carpeting, dry wall and insulation.

Kollar's store was in the heaviest-hit area of the flood. Despite past, but lesser floods in west Goshen, development has continued and fast-food restaurants, veterans lodges, car lots, a pharmacy, the retail plazas at Chicago Avenue and Pike, and other businesses border the roads.

But when the water reached 12.49 feet, the flood entered the Kroger grocery store and other stores in the Trinity Square shopping plaza and business was interrupted.

Kroger management closed the store, tossed out flood-damaged stock and donated inventory that was salvageable to local food banks.

The company said it spent millions to remodel the store and it took until Aug. 1 to reopen.

The landmark Oasis bar was not as lucky. The owners decided the building adjacent to Linway Plaza along Lincoln Avenue was too damaged to fix up, and it was torn down this winter. A new bar, one elevated on fill dirt above the flood level, is being built.

LESSONS LEARNED

In his first term as Goshen's mayor, Jeremy Stutsman did not expect to be at the center of a record-flooding emergency.

The event was his first test in managing a natural disaster crisis as the head of city government.

"It was a very quick learning curve I had, as it happened," Stutsman said.

He and city staff worked what he described as an incredible number of hours throughout that week, coordinating local response efforts.

Stutsman, who has a background in construction and is used to weeks with long overtime, said he about a half-dozen other staff members worked 91 hours during the first 97 hours of the flood emergency. Other employees also put in long hours.

The situation also served as a lesson on best practices for communicating with state and/or federal teams in an emergency.

"It was a crash course of what you need to do," Stutsman said.

An update to the city's emergency management system and communications shortly before the flood proved helpful that week.

After the flood and over the first couple months of cleanup, Stutsman said staff had debriefings on how the city's response could be improved and how the city could have reacted more quickly.

Moving forward, Stutsman said the city has taken advantage of a program with Indiana University where a student will conduct a greenhouse gas inventory in the community. The results are expected to provide a benchmark on how the emissions are affecting the local environment.

The city is also applying for a grant that would launch a vulnerability assessment of Goshen's stormwater management and watersheds, Stutsman said. The study, through the Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessment Group, would help provide a clearer understanding of flooding paths in the event of future situations.

FUTURE FLOODING?

Now a year later, businesses and homes have been dried out and repaired and life is back to normal for flood victims.

And the question of if a worse flood will occur in the future pops up in Goshen now and then.

"You can never say definitively, but definitely the bar has been raised," Lashley said. "And we see all these studies on rainfall. Certainly, it is possible."

Goshen's flood occurred because warm, moist air flowing at 6,000 to 10,000 feet from the central Pacific Ocean traveled northeast across the Baja Peninsula in Mexico, passed over Texas and headed to northern Indiana.

At the same time, warm, moist air at about 5,000 feet from the Gulf of Mexico was drawn north, Lashley said.

"We call it an atmospheric river," he said of such wet air flows.

The two slow-moving air masses hit northern Indiana at the same time and dropped the record rainfall.

The meteorologist said a similar weather event occurred in southern Indiana last week.

Asked if climate change was responsible for the wetter-than-normal February in 2018, Lashley said, "Essentially what happens is the warming climate allows the atmosphere to hold more moisture."

With an uncertain weather future, Lashley said planning for flood emergencies is a good idea. He praised Elkhart County emergency responders and government officials for being one of the best teams in the state for emergency planning.

"You can't prevent these things from happening, but you can prepare and try to mitigate and prepare so you can recover faster and more efficiently."

Contact The Goshen News staff at [email protected] or call 574-533-2151.

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