In a 24-hour span, Brown County Dispatch logged 138 calls for assistance as water rose around the county.
After half a day of downpour on Feb. 6, another severe thunderstorm swept through the area just after lunchtime Feb. 7, tipping already-full creeks past their bursting points, triggering a tornado warning and wreaking havoc on any plans anyone had for their day.
“Some of the roads that were flooding … are roads that have never flooded before, or the last time was in ‘08,” said Susan Armstrong, Brown County Emergency Management Agency director. “It was flooding in places that are abnormal for our area, so it was catching people off-guard.”
The list of problem roads posted on EMA’s Facebook page Thursday afternoon was extensive:
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Georgetown Road at the bridge: Bridge is close to washing out.
Dobbs Cemetery Road: Washing out.
Sweetwater Trail: Passable, but the Gatesville store area is under water.
East of 3196 Smith Road: Half the road is washed away and culvert is collapsed.
Crooked Creek, State Road 45 west of Morrison, Bear Creek — all flooded and impassible.
A “yellow” level travel advisory was issued before noon, and residents kept reporting more road problems and posting pictures most of the day — which was something Armstrong really appreciated. That told EMA and officers where the trouble spots were, she said.
As of Friday afternoon, three roads were still closed or impassible: Georgetown Road because of the washed-out bridge, and T.C. Steele Road and Shepherd Road (off State Road 135 South) because of damage to the road surface.
Armstrong didn’t have a total damage estimate or predictions on what it would take to fix what the storm brought down. She was asking homeowners, renters, businesses and nonprofits that weren’t insured to report damage by calling 211. A link to the damage reporting website also will be posted on the county’s website, browncounty-in.gov, she said.
Those reports will help to determine the scope of the damage.
Armstrong didn’t know yet if the county would be applying for any kind of assistance; that would partly depend on the extent of problems reported by property owners and by the town and county street departments, she said.
An emergency shelter was opened at the Brown County YMCA Thursday to take in people who either couldn’t get to their homes or couldn’t stay in them because of the flooding. Three people were there after dark, but didn’t end up needing to stay the night there, so the shelter closed around 10 p.m., Armstrong said. The Red Cross provided them with food, snacks and other necessities.
Some of the most visible damage was along Salt Creek and State Road 46 East. “That area where NAPA, Brown County Tire and Creekside (Retreat) is, that’s probably the worst hit we’ve gotten so far,” Armstrong said. This was at least the third time since the great Flood of 2008 that water had reached those properties.
Firefighter first responders waded through knee-deep water to rescue a resident from the Gnaw Bone area whose house had been surrounded. They suited up in lifejackets and used a safety rope to get to dry land.
Firefighters, police or conservation officers were called to a dozen other possible rescue situations throughout the day — nearly all of them people in vehicles who tried to drive through flooded roads, or found themselves surrounded when water unexpectedly rose behind or in front of them, Armstrong said.
Most Brown County Schools students were kept after the normal end of the school day while school leaders waited for water to recede. Some parents opted to pick their kids up early, but then had to find alternate routes to get there. Buses left the Nashville campus headed for the outlying elementaries at about 4 p.m.; they eventually delivered students to their regular drop-off points.
After about a 50-degree dip in the temperature overnight, getting out didn’t get much easier.
School was canceled on Feb. 8, as approximately half the roads in Brown County weren’t safe for travel because of flooding or debris, Superintendent Laura Hammack told parents early Friday morning. Students had an eLearning day instead — their seventh day of no school this season because of weather.
Brown County’s emergency management advisory committee meets regularly to plan for situations like this, Armstrong said. After summer flooding a couple years ago, they made changes to their protocols which they implemented this time around. The group will meet to discuss what went right and what could have gone better from this flood, too, she said.
What was unusual about this storm was that it came not too long after a spate of extreme cold and snow melt, which likely hampered the rain’s ability to soak in, she said.
“The ground was still pretty frozen under that first layer, so when you factor all that in, the water had no place to go. That’s the difference between us and Jackson or Bartholomew county because they have rivers; their rivers are coming up now and they’re going to have that river flooding. Ours is that runoff coming out of the hills and it had no place to go.”
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Emergency responders were extremely busy Thursday as water swiftly rose around the county. Here’s what we heard on the police scanner in about a one-hour period:
1:06 p.m. Dispatch receives a report of water flowing into the Helmsburg General Store and storage units.
1:09 p.m. Woman reports a relative walking barefoot through the woods from the golf course to try to get to Whalen Drive (in the State Road 135 South area) because of flooding. She’s concerned for her safety.
1:10 p.m. Officer reports that the 2600 to 3000 blocks of Helmsburg Road are nearly impassible.
1:12 p.m. Officer reports Old 46 from Snyder Road to the fairgrounds is under water.
1:13 p.m. Nineveh Road is starting to flood; it won’t be long before people won’t be able to get out that way, officer warns.
1:16 p.m. A vehicle is reported in the water on Greasy Creek Road somewhere between Bear Wallow Road and the highway garage with no one around it.
1:18 p.m. Nashville Fire is dispatched to a possible rescue situation related to the “woman walking through the woods” call.
1:19 p.m. Nashville firefighter, on the way to that call, reports Van Buren Street flooded in front of the BP station.
1:21 p.m. Dispatch receives a report of a woman in a vehicle on Owl Creek with water starting to come inside.
1:22 p.m. Officer reports Greasy Creek Road is impassible for a vehicle like his.
1:24 p.m. Officer reports Helmsburg Road is down to one lane in places because of washouts.
1:24 p.m. The Crooked Creek area is flooded, says an officer trying to get home to grab some equipment.
1:35 p.m. Nashville Fire is called off the “woman walking through the woods” run. (We didn’t hear what happened to her.)
1:46 p.m. Officers are closing Nineveh Road, which has about a foot of water over it.
1:51 p.m. Officer reports about 2½ feet of water at Helmsburg School Road and State Road 45, stretching for about 150 yards.
1:53 p.m. Relatives are trying to get a person out of a house off State Road 46 East that’s been surrounded by water. Two Nashville fire trucks head out, including a ladder truck.
1:57 p.m. Officers are still trying to get to the vehicle that was reportedly in the water on Owl Creek.
1:59 p.m. Caller tells dispatch that Sweetwater Trail is under water in several places; potentially everywhere north of Mt. Moriah is under water.
2:01 p.m. Dispatch receives a report of a person trapped in a vehicle in water on Clay Lick just north of Old 46. (That call was cleared up at about 2:45 p.m.)
2:07 p.m. A wrecker driver reports to police that he didn’t run across the vehicle that’s supposedly on Owl Creek.
2:14 p.m. The person in the water-surrounded house is out and on higher ground.
2:25 p.m. Police and firefighters are called to another water rescue, on Crooked Creek just south of 46. A vehicle is submerged with a person standing on the roof. (That person was rescued.)
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