Winter floods cost $33M

MONTICELLO, Ind. – Many residents are still trying to get their lives back in order three months after winter floodwaters inundated homes across a large swath of Northern Indiana.\nThe flooding that began Jan. 7 damaged more than 800 homes and caused more than $33 million in damage stretching from Lafayette to South Bend to Fort Wayne. Federal disaster aid was eventually approved for 21 counties in that region.\n“People don’t realize it, but there are a lot of folks with a lot of needs out there,” said Alan Welch, director of Disaster Assistance for Northwest Indiana, a long-term recovery agency formed in response to the January and February floods.\nStarting Monday, teams from the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee Disaster Response program, often called “green shirts” because of their attire, will go door to door in flood-damaged areas.