Ike leftovers rake Boone County

By Marda Johnson/The Lebanon Reporter

The remnants of Hurricane Ike arrived in Boone County just after 2 p.m. Sunday and moved through quickly, but hardly without notice.

Between 2 and 6 p.m., the county received numerous reports of trees and power lines down — in one case on a home with people inside.

Boone County dispatch received its first report of damage at 2:22 p.m., with a tree on a car in the 1000 block of N. Clifford Court in Lebanon. That was followed by power lines down in the 200 block of N. Fourth St. in Zionsville, a tree in the road near the intersection of county roads 975 E. and 300 S. in Whitestown and a large limb at Ind. 421 and CR 300 S. in Whitestown.

At 2:35 p.m. a tree and power lines fell on a home in the 11000 block of East Ind. 334 in Zionsville. People inside were not harmed, according to preliminary information.

Damage reports continued to come in for the next hour, with power lines down near McDonald’s in Lebanon, lines down behind the Boone County Health Department in the 100 block of Washington Street in Lebanon, lines down in the 400 block of S. Main St. in Whitestown, a tree down on lines in the 300 block of Washington St. in Lebanon, power lines down in the 400 block of Maple St. in Zionsville, a barrel blowing in traffic at the 1 mile marker on I-865, a tree on power lines in the 300 block of Fifth St. in Zionsville and power lines down in the 200 block of Beechwood Lane in Zionsville.

Logan Johnson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Indianapolis, said radar estimates showed about .5 to .75 inches of rainfall in Boone County during the storm. He noted that a weather sensor in Zionsville measured a peak wind gust of 45 miles per hour.

Other places fared far worse.

Flooding was blamed for two deaths in northern Indiana on Sunday, and heavy rains sent the Little Calumet River over a levee and prompted the evacuations of thousands of homes in northwest Indiana.

Two men apparently drowned Sunday morning while trying to help a group of children out of swift water in a ditch in a Chesterton subdivision, Fire Chief Warren Highwood said. The men, a father and son, were believed to be related to one of the children.

None of the children were injured, he said.

The Porter County coroner was investigating the deaths in the town about 35 miles southeast of Chicago and the men’s identities were not immediately released.

About 40 Indiana National Guard troops were activated Sunday afternoon to assist with the evacuation of up to 5,000 residents from about 3,000 homes and to help safeguard property in Munster, Staff Sgt. Jeff Lowry said in a news release.

A shelter was set up at Munster High School.

Town Manager Tom DeGiulio said natural gas service in some neighborhoods was turned off as a precaution, and it likely would be several days before evacuees could return.

He called the flooding the worst he’s seen in 25 years in Munster.

“We’ve never had flooding like this,” DeGiulio said.

Sunday’s rains came from the remnants of Hurricane Ike on the heels of a drenching the day before from the remains of Tropical Storm Lowell.

By Sunday morning, Valparaiso had received 8.4 inches of rain in the previous 48 hours and the cities of Porter, LaPorte and South Bend, 7.7 inches, the National Weather Service said. Portage, Chesterton and Kouts each had received more than 7 inches, and most areas in northwest and north-central Indiana had received at least 5 inches.

DeGiulio said Munster had some small breaches in the levee along the Little Calumet River, but no breaks.

“It’s come over in a couple of spots, but it hasn’t been a collapse of the levee,” he said.

The river, which was 5 feet over flood stage Sunday afternoon, was flowing over the levee along a quarter-mile stretch, he said.

The Indiana Department of Transportation said all lanes of Interstate 80/94 were closed for a few miles just west of the Illinois border in Lake County.

In Schererville, south of Munster, about two dozen homes were evacuated on the western side of town, Town Manager Bob Volkmann said. He said the evacuations were not mandatory. The town recommended that anyone with standing water in their living areas leave. An emergency shelter was set up at the town hall.

Schererville doesn’t have a river going through it, but several tributary creeks were overflowing, he said.

“This is the worst we’ve ever seen,” he said.

The state dispatched state police dive teams, Department of Natural Resources boat teams and other emergency workers to assist with recovery operations, said Indiana Department of Homeland Security spokesman John Erickson said.

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