ANDERSON- Anthony Wallace was nosing his roommate’s truck down Anderson’s streets on the morning of Aug. 14, searching for a route home that wasn’t submerged by the spreading flood. When he turned down Sycamore Street, the vehicle was swept into the water.
“The truck just went ‘splash!’” Wallace said.
Onlookers gathered on higher ground to watch as the 55-year-old spent the rest of his morning swimming through a submerged intersection, corralling belongings into a garbage bin. Two neighbors waded, then swam, to offer help. Wallace waved them off, and eventually pulled the gray bin through several feet of water back to solid ground.
When he emerged from the water, Wallace’s blue t-shirt was drenched up to his chest. But he found what he was searching for: military dog-tags attached to a silver chain.
“In Anderson, this is the first time I’m really seeing water. This is the first time I’ve seen it flood,” Wallace said.
It’s the first time anyone in Anderson has seen it flood like this. The White River, which carves through Anderson from east to west, was measured at 24.93 feet early Friday, August 15th – the highest it’s been documented in Anderson since the United States Geological Survey started keeping records.
Anderson’s flooding isn’t isolated. Gov. Mike Braun issued a statewide disaster emergency on Thursday after severe flooding, high winds and storms akin to an inland hurricane began battering Indiana this week. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning until 6:30 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 14 for southern Madison County, including Anderson.
Many Anderson residents faced mandatory evacuation orders as flooding spilled into neighborhood streets, backyards and basements – and it’s unclear when the water will recede.
Evacuations force residents out of their homes
Anderson residents living on the banks of the White River and Shadyside Lake have faced city-issued mandatory evacuation orders. They’re turning to family members, motels and emergency flood shelters.
When an officer came around with news that Kelly Barraw was living in the flood zone a day earlier, she left home almost immediately. She grabbed medication, a change of clothes, and makeshift bedding – a pillow and a blanket for both her and her husband.
“Not very much,” she said, standing over a box of emergency supplies in the Salvation Army building in Anderson.
Barraw and her husband plan to stay at the shelter for a few days. Until then, she’s trying to build up the nerve to go back and see how the house she has owned for four years looks after the flood.
“I need to go over that way and check and see,” Barraw said. “But I’m just too scared to do it… Scared to see that I lost it.”
Historic flooding in the streets
Neighborhoods beyond the mandatory evacuation zone in Anderson have also flooded.
Entire streets were impassable on Friday morning, blocked by bright orange barricades and several feet of water. A gray sedan sat abandoned, halfway submerged, in an alley off Sycamore Street, and several feet of water had crept up front porches, into basements and through backyards.
Paul Strong, bus driver and renter on 6th Street, said he slept in his car to keep an eye on the flooding – from a distance.
“I ain’t never seen it come up this far,” Strong said. The floodwater had engulfed each stair leading down to his basement, but he still wasn’t planning on leaving.
Other residents booked motel rooms or were searching for spots at 24-hour flood shelters. The Salvation Army’s 24-hour flood shelter in Anderson had capacity for roughly 50 more overnight residents as of 2:30 p.m., said Shelly Delong, the social services coordinator. Rangeline Community Center and Park Place Church of God were also offering overnight shelter.
Across the street from the home Wallace shares with Norman Keller, the water was up to the first-floor windows. Their own basement is flooded, and to keep out the water lapping at their front door, Keller let his dogs out through the window onto a makeshift metal dock.
The cops told him he didn’t have to leave, Keller said. So he’s staying put.
“We aren’t going nowhere,” said Wallace. “I’m not gonna leave Norman here by himself.”
IndyStar’s environmental reporting is made possible through the generous support of the nonprofit Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.
Sophie Hartley is an IndyStar environment reporter. You can reach her at sophie.hartley@indystar.com or on X at @sophienhartley.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Historic water levels force Anderson residents to evacuate
Reporting by Sophie Hartley, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Sophie Hartley, Indianapolis Star | USA TODAY Network
