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ROME CITY – The flooding that deluged Fort Wayne last week has receded, but some Noble County residents still wrestled with high water Wednesday as homes and roads remained underwater.
The flooding is severe enough that the American Red Cross delivered bottled water and cleanup kits to the southern part of the county Wednesday.
High water hit at least 150 homes in the county, most in flood plains around the area's many lakes, said Michael T. Newton, the county's emergency management director.
The homes around Jones, Steinbarger, Tamarack and Waldron lakes, in particular, were hardest hit because the lakes act as drainage basins for a large area, he said.
Water has receded from many of the affected homes, Newton said. But earlier in the week, flooding at Waldron Lake was still severe enough that Dave Marshall had to strap on his waders to move a neighbor's pontoon boat that had drifted into what was once his front yard.
For Marshall, 54, the flooding has become almost routine. During the winter, he and his wife live in the second floor of their two-story concrete lakefront house, and they made sure to put any downstairs appliances on stilts, well above the flood line. This way, he explained, it isn't a disaster when the first floor floods.
"We've kind of learned and kind of live with it," he said. "But it's frustrating."
Water from the swollen lake still lapped against the front of his house Wednesday. Homes in lower areas on the south side of the lake were entirely surrounded by water.
Part of the problem is that several inlets feed into the four chain lakes and only the Elkhart River drains the area, Newton said.
A U.S. Geological Survey gauge downstream from the lake shows the Elkhart River crested about 6 inches below the 8-foot flood stage. But homes upstream started to flood when the river rose to 2 feet below flood stage, he added.
Because most of the flooded homeowners live on or near flood plains and were presumably at least somewhat prepared, much of the damage didn't destroy the homes, Newton said. But the flooding is still devastating
"Your heart just goes out to the people who got flooded out," he said.
County officials are still trying to tally the cost of the flood in the hopes local government and homeowners can qualify for federal relief dollars, Newton said.
