Indiana residents pull together to stop flooding

DECATUR, Ind. -- Strangers and National Guardsmen joined together Wednesday in an effort to save homes surrounded by flood waters brought on by days of thunderstorms.\nThe St. Marys River in northeastern Indiana remained at record levels and several hundred homes around Decatur had been flooded or were being threatened by high water.\nRivers, streams and creeks from Fort Wayne to Lafayette and further south were overflowing their banks at levels not seen in decades, with more storms forecast for Wednesday. Rising water flowed over a levee along Pipe Creek at Alexandria, about 30 miles north of Indianapolis.\nThe flooding caused residents of fewer than a dozen homes to leave the low-lying area on the east side of town, said C.R. Brown, executive director Madison County Emergency Management.\n"They've just gotten the football team to start sandbagging," said Diane Woodsides, director of the nearby Alexandria Community Center. "There are a lot of people in the community who have either stopped by the Police Department or here, they're willing to do what they can to help."\nSome businesses, including a convenience store and a flower shop, and at least 30 to 40 houses also were inundated with water.\nButch Lewis, a driver for Alexandria Floral and Candle Store, waded through waist-deep water to deliver a spray of roses to a funeral. "It's been worse than this before," he said. "There's a family grieving over there. Somebody's got to see to it that they get their flowers."\nFurther north in Decatur, hundreds of people worked around the community filling sandbags and helping stack them around homes. A line of about 50 friends, neighbors and National Guardsmen passed sandbags to people in chest-deep water trying to rebuild a dike around the back of Richard and Lynne Novack's home so a pump could remove water that had filled the basement since Sunday night.\n"We gave up for a while and went yesterday to help others sandbag their homes," Richard Novack said. He had been marking the water level and it reached within a few feet of his first floor late Tuesday. "We knew we had to do something if we were going to save the house at all," Novack said.\nThe St. Marys River at Decatur in Adams County, some 20 miles south of Fort Wayne, was at 26.9 feet Wednesday, far above the 17-foot flood stage, according to the National Weather Service.\nAlden Taylor, spokesman for the State Emergency Management Agency, said that an additional 50 National Guardsmen were being sent to the Bluffton and Decatur areas to assist in flood efforts, bring to about 170 the number of Guardsmen involved.\nSharon Thornton, chief deputy for Emergency Management Services for Adams County, said authorities did not yet know how much damage had been done.\n"All we're trying to do now is to keep the houses that aren't flooded from becoming flooded," Thornton said. "We'll worry about how many homes were damaged after the waters go down."\nThe St. Marys was forecast to crest later Wednesday, but resident were keeping a worried eye on the sky. "All we can do is pray," Stacy Jester said as neighbors piled sandbags around her home. Her pastor husband was helping others elsewhere to get to their homes by canoe.\n"The flooding is terrible, but it's great to see how the community has pulled together," Jester said.\nGov. Frank O'Bannon declared a state of emergency Tuesday for 25 counties in northern and north-central Indiana, a step that could lead to federal aid for flood victims and local governments. State officials said other counties could be added to the list later this week.\n"I'm hopeful that the federal government will recognize that Hoosiers have been hit hard and need help," O'Bannon said.\nFederal aid could include temporary housing for evacuated families whose homes were destroyed or made unlivable. It could also provide low-interest loans for repairs and money to help local governments cope with the flooding.\nMore than 13,000 customers across northern and central Indiana remained without power Wednesday, down from 52,000 on Tuesday, utility officials said.\nCinergy had about 30,000 new outages from storms that rolled across central Indiana late Tuesday and early Wednesday, but all but about 300 of those customers had power restored by Wednesday morning, spokeswoman Angeline Protegere said.