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Flooding swamps La Porte County

Derek Smith
Staff Writer

LA PORTE COUNTY - When Harry Nulf got the call to come to work at 6 p.m. Tuesday, the highway maintenance worker thought he'd be putting up a few high water warning signs. He was wrong.

"As you can see there's a lot more," said a drenched Nulf, an employee with the Indiana Department of Transportation's Michigan City unit.

Severe thunderstorms and rainfall caused flooding in several areas throughout La Porte County, with many of the most serious areas seemingly in the Michigan City area.

Nulf found himself wading through knee-deep water on U.S. 12 near Liberty Trail when wind blew his high-water signs into the roadway, not to mention cleaning out storm water drains on U.S. 20 in front of Terrace Acres.

"The storm drains and sewers aren't taking in the water as fast as we would hope," he said.

Ken Osborne with the Michigan City Police Department was directing traffic Tuesday evening away from a particularly bad spot on U.S. 35 under the U.S. 20 overpass where nearly 4 feet of standing water caused problems for vehicles. Osborne said around 8 p.m. that at least five vehicles were stuck in the span of a half-hour.

Jake Pearish was one unlucky driver whose car stalled while driving west on Johnson Road during the storm.

"My car is kind of low to the ground," Pearish said from the Waterford Inn parking lot, where a friend had towed his Honda Civic.

His white collared shirt was drenched and his hair matted from the rain.

Several residents in the area experienced power outages: According to the NIPSCO's Web site, Michigan City had 93 customers without power and La Porte had 24 as of 8:30 p.m.

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Flood Plain
1,500 were without power after heavy storm

By Craig Davison and Derek Smith
Staff Writers

LA PORTE - Nearly 1,500 people in the Michigan City and La Porte area, including Blue Chip Casino, lost power due to storms which caused flash flooding, downed trees and power lines on Tuesday. But by Wednesday, much of the mess was cleaned up.

County Emergency Management reported that the only problem Wednesday was in Rolling Prairie near the Wheatbrook area.

"Yesterday's storms caused considerable damage and scattered electric outages for 1,492 customers and NIPSCO crews worked late into the evening to restore power," said NIPSCO Communications Manager Nick Meyer.

Six inches of rain fell in two hours in that area, and there was nowhere for that much water to go, the department reported.

The National Weather Service reported 5.11 inches of rain five miles north of the city of La Porte and 4.09 inches in Michigan City.

John Jones, director of Michigan City Emergency Management, said they had flash flooding on Tuesday night, adding he saw waves on Franklin Street.

"We really got a good downpour," he said.

But the storm sewers quickly removed a lot of the water and the dry ground also picked it up, leaving no real standing water, Jones said.

The rain started to pour when a breeze from the southern edge of Lake Michigan caused air to rise, according to Ken Ludington, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service's Syracuse, Ind., office.

A big chunk of the rain fell between 3:30 and 5:30 p.m. with more following later in the evening thanks to a cold front passing northwest through the county, Ludington said.

Jones said he had not received any individual calls of water in homes Wednesday, but it's possible. The county Highway Department also reported no roads remained closed to high water by mid-day Wednesday.

Meyer reported that all but 246 NIPSCO customers were restored by midnight. The remaining customers were restored early Wednesday morning.