A small crowd gathered outside Rocky Ripple Town Hall on Saturday morning to watch the White River rush past.
The river was still a few feet below the top of the levee, but it had swollen well above its usual channel, enveloping the trees that usually stood along its banks. Logs and barrels rolled downstream on the murky, mud-saturated current.
Most residents of Rocky Ripple, built on a spit of land between the White River and the Indiana Central Canal, had evacuated the night before as the Indianapolis Department of Public Works began closing floodgates. Some had returned in the morning to see where the waters stood.
Desiree Hagan, a 30-year Rocky Ripple resident, packed up and moved her family’s car outside the flood wall when residents were warned to evacuate on Aug. 14. But the next morning, she came back on her bicycle to scope out the river. She was circling the town every few hours, she said.
Hagan said she was feeling cautiously optimistic that the rising water would not inflict too much damage in Rocky Ripple.
“It will be a slow burn unless the levee fails, in which case it’ll come pretty good,” she said.
Joshua Taflinger, who has lived in Rocky Ripple for 20 years, was standing outside town hall on Saturday morning. He and his family had decided to stay in their house, but he had been awake most of the night anyway, filling sandbags and helping other residents pack their belongings.
“People were freaking out,” he said. “I don’t think anybody here has experienced this.”
Early on Saturday, the town was quiet and the streets nearly empty. Water puddled in driveways and in the town’s community garden. An intermittent stream of cars drove toward the 53rd Street Bridge, the last exit from Rocky Ripple into Indianapolis.
Morgan Smith, who lives in Indianapolis just across the canal, crossed the bridge on foot in the other direction. She was walking toward Rocky Ripple Town Hall to see if there was anything she could do to help.
“We’ve lived here for 20 years and never had this happen,” Smith said.
Shortly before 9:30 a.m., police began circling the town, blaring an evacuation warning to residents over a loudspeaker in a patrol car: “Attention: The 53rd Street Gate is going to be closed. You need to evacuate.”
Outside the floodgate, a small crowd of evacuees gathered. Destiny Davis, who has lived in Rocky Ripple her whole life, packed up the night before and brought her belongings to friends’ houses. But she spent the night at her place and only left when officials decided to close the 53rd Street floodgate. She brought her dog and cat, Coda and Leo, in her car.
“Evacuate and hope for the best, that’s what they said,” Davis said. “And we all get closed in and shut off, and everybody else’s house is safe — which I get, but for the people that live here, that’s very hard to hear.”
Davis’s mother, Sarah Montoya, said her own grandmother first moved to Rocky Ripple in the 1940s. As far as Montoya knew, her grandmother never saw anything like the current flooding.
Now, for the first time, Montoya watched as Indianapolis worker prepared to close the floodgates. Around her, she said, were other neighbors who had sworn they wouldn’t evacuate just the night before.
Rocky Ripple town council president Randy Sanders told evacuees that the evacuation could last until tomorrow evening — or longer. After heavy rainfall upstream, hydrologists thought the White River would crest in the evening, later than anticipated, he said.
“We’re not going to peak until about 8:00 tonight,” Sanders said. “This is the long run, folks.”
“Do you think it’s really going to get bad in there?” Montoya asked.
“Honest opinion, it’s going to get very close to the top,” Sanders said. “What we’re most worried about is that it’s going to blow the levee.”
Evacuees could find water and restrooms at Gate 4 of Butler University’s Hinkle Fieldhouse, Sanders said. As for Sanders, his work wasn’t done: He planned to cross back over the 53rd Street Bridge to see whether the water had risen toward Rocky Ripple.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Rocky Ripple residents evacuate as last floodgate closes
Reporting by Tilly Robinson, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Tilly Robinson, Indianapolis Star | USA TODAY Network
