Minor flooding affects homes in Michiana
NEW CARLISLE, Ind. --- High rain totals impacted people living across Michiana over the weekend.
Barbara Cousins, a New Carlisle resident, saw water levels rise throughout her backyard on Saturday.
A pond borders the fence to Cousins’ backyard and the rainfall caused the water to fill up, leaving portions of Cousins’ backyard completely under water.
“So there’s nowhere for it to go when it rains like this,” said Cousins. “The pond has nowhere for it to go and out of all the backyards… this is the one that gets it”
Cousins has lived in her home in New Carlisle for 12 years and said this is not the first time her backyard has filled with water after a rain storm.
“Thank god it never has reached the house, but as you can see there’s gotta be an answer to fix this,” said Cousins.
Cousins said they have tried numerous times to stop the flooding; they even brought truckloads of dirt in the past in an attempt to build up the bank around the pond, but it did not help.
“Luckily we’ve never had any damage,” said Cousins. “But, you know, next year will come around and you’ll have to re-sod and you know the ground is just…I don’t think it’s that capable of taking all this water.”
Cousins said there has to be something that can be done, likely starting with the overall structure of the pond.
“You know we are in a subdivision and there is an association,” said Cousins. “I think they should have people come out and maybe structurally look at the ponds because we had nothing to do with the building of the pond.”
The Cousins family has been fortunate enough to never experience damage to their home from the repeat flooding, but some people in Michiana might not be so lucky.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to never, knock on wood, have water in my basement,” said Cousins. “But whatever they can do preventatively…I mean, I feel, my heart breaks for all these people and I know sandbags aren’t the answer but I guess you’ve just got to deal with whatever comes your way…if it’s bringing in pumps to get out the water or hiring someone to see what can be done. I just wish them the best with this because it’s a horrible thing to happen.”
Adam Parkhouse, Communications Director for INDOT, said the best thing to do is be prepared and take things slow if you are out driving on the road.
“So you might be traveling along and everything is fine and then all of a sudden we’ve got some black ice and things like that,” said Parkhouse. “So we like to tell people just assume they’re icy conditions in weather like this and leave yourself plenty of time and again, I can’t stress this enough—slow down.”
Parkhouse said they have been anticipating high waters, but as temperatures drop and snowy conditions move in, that is where the focus will be.