Bluffton, Indiana’s flood
of 2003, page 2Please scroll down and down.
This is only one of many pages.
Bluffton got six inches of rain in two hours or so on the night of July 4.
Then the Wabash River began to rise, fast and equaled the 100 year flood mark here . It poured rain for days.
In all, we got over 10 inches. We had over 370 houses affected. About 40 of them had flood insurance.
I’ll keep adding more pages as fast as I can.
From our State Legislature, Jeff Espich put
in many hours of hard labor.
This homeowner hired people to pump out his basement.
The next day, the river rose and his whole house was engulfed.
This area flooded up Washington Street as well as from the
back yard.
Here’s how the back yards on East Washington Street looked.
Then the next time I came back, the water was all the way up
to the top of this swimming pool.
Edith Daugherty brought out chairs for us to rest in. Many
Blufftonites brought different kinds of food. Pizza was a gift
from Pizza Hut, East of Chicago and Papa John’s.
The Red Cross brought some food and drinks too. Note the
fan in the background on a yellow cooler.
It shot out loads of ice cold mist. Most of us had not seen
anything like it before.
By the end of the second day, they brought in
floodlights so we could keep working after
dark. On this one day, we bagged 700 tons
of sand. How? One shovelful at a time.
Near Hiday Motors GM, the water closed one lane of State
Road 1 going each way. The sandbags held at Hiday’s
perhaps because they were stacked like bricks, with each
layer staggered.
Our DNR officer said a lot of the wildlife
involved would drown, and the rest would
move into our yards for a while
Whole families came to pitch in with sandbagging.
Homeowners brought brownies. Church groups
sent big batches of homemade cookies.
Others brought huge ice chests filled with bottle
of Gatorade or bottled water.
Every bit was welcome and needed.
Page 3 lives at www.tentativetimes.net/03flood/flood3.html
Did you see page one?
DOZENS MORE PHOTOS TO COME.
Check back here soon.
Here’s the link back to the cover of Our Tentative Times e-zine
with other Bluffton pages.
Page made by Tell-Mama, a.k.a.
Sandra Weinhardt email editor@tentativetimes.net