Fourth Anniversary of Flood

[Kagnew]

Today is the fourth anniversary (06-07-08) of the flood which wrought havoc on Columbus, among other places. "100 year flood", they said. I hope to H... it's at least 100 years before it happens again. 'tweren't no fun!

 

[mcolford]

I remember that, my sister inlaw lived down there, and they sent pics of their riding mower, and only the hood/steering wheel were visible. Awesomeness (then again, it wasnt mine).

 

[Kagnew]

I remember that, my sister inlaw lived down there, and they sent pics of their riding mower, and only the hood/steering wheel were visible. Awesomeness (then again, it wasnt mine).

We had a little over 3' of water in our house. Amazing how much damage it did. We still find ourselves looking for things which we no longer have, and still find "flood mud" on things out in the garage. We were a whole lot luckier than a lot of people, though.

 

[Lucas156]

Yup I remember it I had to move it really sucked

 

[Magneto]

My Uncle and Aunt live between Columbus and Nashville. Some friends of theirs were having a flood party. Some of the people were forced out of their homes and they were trying to show them a good time. Until the waters rose and the house with the party had to be evacuated. Funny but not funny.

 

[hoosierdoc]

We were building a home and got 14" of rain in 4 hours in Edinburgh. Went down there with a push broom to get the water off the subfloor (had a floor but no roof) before it warped. We got down there but couldn't get back because US31, 65, and all back roads were closed due to flooding. Took back roads, scared my wife by driving through some water, ate at Ruby Tuesday before they closed down early and hung out at the gas station at Exit 80. While waiting there, someone came up and said "Are you an ER doc at .... hospital?" I nervously said yes then said he recognized me from when he was there recently. You never know how those interactions are going to go

what was amazing is small streams put debris about 10' above the current water level 6 hours after the rain and the smaller stuff looked like it was back to normal. Talk about flash flooding

 

[terrehautian]

The "bowl" of Terre Haute flooded bad and sadly I lived in the bowl. At 3:30am my sister and mom were talking and I just happened to wake up. I went into the living room and seen the water was inches from coming in. Rushed to get everything we could off the floor and some stuff in my car. Got the cat and went to my grandparents at 4:30am. As we were leaving it was lapping in. The apartment I was in was a foot off the ground also. Couldn't sleep as you could imagine, so around 8:30am after the rain had stopped, my mom and myself went back to get a few more things that I didn't think to get. It was about 2.5' inside the apartment, down a foot already. Got some things and went back to my grandparents. Next day, we had some church family that came over with boxes, trailer, I had my dads truck, and since the water was gone, got everything that was salvageable out. Lost all the beds, most desktop computers, furniture. Took two days to get everything out. The apartment people said it was only going to be a few weeks, but that was the third time those apartments had flooded in 15 years. Once was enough for me, I don't want myself, my friends, or my enemies to go through a flood. No one deserves to go through that.


I ended up staying at my dads for three weeks until my mom found an apartment.

This was the highway that was a couple hundred feet from my apartment.

If anyone is familiar with TH, I lived beside the Walmart on 41.

 

[Kagnew]

We were building a home and got 14" of rain in 4 hours in Edinburgh. Went down there with a push broom to get the water off the subfloor (had a floor but no roof) before it warped. We got down there but couldn't get back because US31, 65, and all back roads were closed due to flooding. Took back roads, scared my wife by driving through some water, ate at Ruby Tuesday before they closed down early and hung out at the gas station at Exit 80. While waiting there, someone came up and said "Are you an ER doc at .... hospital?" I nervously said yes then said he recognized me from when he was there recently. You never know how those interactions are going to go

what was amazing is small streams put debris about 10' above the current water level 6 hours after the rain and the smaller stuff looked like it was back to normal. Talk about flash flooding

It was a beautiful afternoon here. We had come home from vacation the night before, and I was mowing the front yard when the water started coming up out of the storm drain in front of our house. I told our (then fairly new) neighbor that I had seen it do that several years ago, but that it had only got up onto the sidewalk. He asked, "it's surely not going to get up to our houses, is it?", to which I replied, "oh, Hell no. It won't get that high." So much for my credibility!

 

[drysdaleg]

I worked with the red cross taking people to easy high school so they had a place to sleep. I remember when east started flooding and we had to move everyone to north high school and the middle school. I was lucky enough not to have any damage to my house but the stuff I saw was pretty crazy.

 

[longbow]

That was an interesting day. I live on a hilltop and had almost $10,000 in water damage it rained so hard. A few miles north of me, several box culvert crossings just vanished. Several State highway bridges were also damaged or washed away in my area.

At sunrise, the roads were blocked in all directions about 1,500 feet from our place.

The bridge to the east of me had water roaring under it so fast you could not easily talk when you were close. We made some water crossing in our truck only because I knew the roads and took it slow. About a dozen cars tried and became sunken hulks for over a week till they got around to pull them out of the fields.

Two of my neighbors lost the driveway bridges crossing a creek to rushing water.

Farm tractors are great for moving through flood waters.

Spencer had some residents do some very stupid things and were lucky no one died from the water or energized lines.

One turn in a creek removed part of hill and road. It took 1,100 tri ax dump trucks to fill in just one wash out so they could rebuild a road to reach 11 homes.

They almost used explosives on two bridges that had dams building up on them from trees, branches and other floating things to prevent the bridge from failing. The only problem was it was too dangerous to set the charges so they waited it out. One bridge was damaged and repaired. The other was just replaced earlier this year.

If you look north on the Freedom bridge, you can still see how the water changed the course of the river and washed away much of the farmland north of it.

 

[GlockRock]

I was working 3rd shift when it hit. Ended up rescuing a few people that drove through the water and were washed off the highways. After working my shift, I dispatched Fire, EMS and Law Enforcement for 16 hours since none of our dispatchers could make it to work. I lived at the jail sleeping in a makeshift bedroom until I could make it home because of the flooding and mud slides.

 

[812guns]

Its hard to believe it has been four years. That was a long day I will never forget. I was not prepared for what hit that day. Years later...maybe a little better prepared but still not good enough.

 

[starbreather]

I worked at CRH in the ED during all the fun! They kept announcing over the intercom "if your cars are parked in the west lot you need to move them" and of course thats all they said. I kept think to myself "self are they repaving or what?". I had not a clue of what was going on around me except for the patients I had. Finally, my wife new to the area sent me a picture on the smart phone with a quote "is the water supposed the be this high?". As it was cresting the banks of Haw creek. Once again, I thought to myself "self this is interesting, never seen that before". Now, granted I am a tried and true breed product of the island town of Columbus. I have seen minimal flooding in the local park and the frequent crest of the local rivers over their banks. The reality set in once the elevator was raised out of the basement and it was still full of water, SPLASH. Shorlty there after the drains began to spray water up at least a foot. The evacuation started shortly there after. Helicopter after helicopter for the critical and ambulance after ambulance for the lesser. This was an interesting feat to participate in and watch. It was an interesting view from the top floor watch the white water caps where the golf course was. While I did work about a 24 hour non stop, fun filled shift. I partcipated in a make shift ED in the ambulance bay. I had the pleasure of working out of a mobile disaster relief (2 semi trailer attached) hosptial, complete with to surgical suits, MED 1 out of North Carolina. Thankfully the water stopped at my door step 4 blocks away. Lucky ME.

Check it out:
http://news.webshots.com/album/564067867QqMTOP

 

[bkflyer]

That was quite a day. I was one of the pilots working that day. After PHI broke on the pad we had to use "the grassy knoll" and the bridge. The Marines working at Atterbury tried to help, but landing a CH-53 in the Hardies parking lot didn't work out too well! Strange, all that water, and our house right across the street didn't get any water in the basement.

 

[Caleb]

One of my neighbors basement wall caved in, another neighbor lost $25k in old comic books

 

[terrehautian]

My girlfriends parents didn't have any standing water near their home, but their basement wall collapsed. They ended up having to tear the house down.

 

[eldirector]

My aunt lost her home that week, and my grandmother nearly did (the basement wall nearly caved). My aunt is wheelchair-bound, and had to be rescued. Her wheelchair van was a total loss, and her house sat in 6' of water. By some miracle, both of her cats survived. I spent the better part of the week helping with salvage work. My aunt ended up with 2 changes of clothes, 2 cats, some dishes, her ceiling-mounted lift, and that's about it. Made for a rough week, and another rough 6 months or so.

Say what you want about Jehovah's Witnesses, but they had dozens of folks out helping clean up that next day from the "church" next door to my aunt. Their building was a loss as well, but they spent as much time helping their neighbors as cleaning up their own mess.

On the flip side, I had to run off my share of looters, too.....

 

[terrehautian]

Speaking of disasters and looters, when I was in Henryville (Pekin area), one of the home owners was open carrying because of them.