Heavy rainfall poses risk to Indiana residents

Dams throughout the area are failing, posing additional problems.

FRANKLIN, Ind. (AP) — Severe storms crippled central Indiana with as much as 10 inches of rain Saturday and spawned tornadoes that ripped up roofs and flipped tractor-trailers in Wisconsin and the Chicago suburbs.

Flooding was also a problem in Wisconsin after storms blew through with damaging tornadoes that injured at least five people.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels declared an emergency in 10 counties as the Coast Guard was called in from the Great Lakes to help with flooding that has forced hundreds of people from their homes. No injuries or deaths have been reported.

Wisconsin had a few minor tornado injuries, and at least one injury was reported near Chicago. Indiana had been spared any reported deaths or injuries due to flooding.

Ninety percent of the small town of Paragon, southwest of Indianapolis, was underwater, State Homeland Security Director Joe Wainscott said.

Water reached the first floor of Johnson Memorial Hospital in Franklin, but no patients had to be moved, county Commissioner Tom Kite said, and cars were submerged up to their windshields in the county government building parking lot.

“We have dams failing in the Prince’s Lakes area,” threatening the town of Nineveh, about 30 miles south of Indianapolis, Kite said.

Indiana State Police reported evacuations in the Lake Lemon area about 10 miles northeast of Bloomington. Dams near Gold Point were close to collapse, police said.

Near Martinsville, southwest of Indianapolis, Ben Pace watched motorboats rescuing neighbors. The rain didn’t appear that bad when he woke up, Pace said, but he then watched water rise 6 to 8 inches in his backyard shed.

A rescuer came by boat to his front door to get him. He managed to grab some clothes and his dog, leaving the home with knee-deep water in his bedroom.

Interstate 70 was closed in Clay County in west-central Indiana, and Interstate 65 and another major route, U.S. 31, both were closed near Franklin.

Residents of Helmsburg, a town of about 6,000 just 40 miles south of Indianapolis, were taken by bus to a YMCA in Nashville, said Wayne Freeman, Brown County Red Cross chairman.

In western Indiana, water more than a foot deep surrounded homes on Terre Haute’s east side. U.S. 41 was the only route open into Terre Haute, and it was down to one lane by mid-afternoon.

J.D. Kesler, deputy director of the Vigo County Emergency Management Agency, said more than 200 people had to be rescued from their homes, vehicles and nursing homes there.

More than 30,000 electricity customers lost power, the Indiana Utilities Regulatory Commission said.

A powerful line of storms in Wisconsin dropped baseball-size hail on central and southeastern parts of the state, blowing roofs off homes and knocking down trees and power lines. Heavy rains also pelted the area, causing flash flooding.

Authorities said a camper was hurt in Rio and four more people suffered minor injuries after a house had its windows blown out near the Village of Randolph. Authorities also said a tornado spun a police car around.