INDIANAPOLIS – Remnants of Hurricane Isaac will swoop into Indiana from the west and drop as much as 7 inches of rain over five days, providing much-needed relief from the drought in some areas, forecasters said Thursday.
National Weather Service experts told emergency management officials that the storm’s greatest threat could be small tornadoes. The weather service also said flooding was possible but not certain.
“I feel a whole lot better today than I did yesterday,” Greene County Emergency Management Director Roger Axe said after the briefing.
Weather service meteorologist Tara Dudzik said Thursday afternoon’s updated forecast shifted Isaac’s path slightly southward, with the storm’s center predicted to drift from Illinois into central Indiana and toward the state’s southeast corner Sunday and Monday.
She said the heaviest rainfall – between 5 and 7 inches – was predicted to fall across the state’s central and southeast counties over five days ending Tuesday.
Some cities including Indianapolis, Terre Haute and Greenwood placed sandbags and other supplies to shore up levees and protect structures from possible floodwaters.
“It’s dry enough, the rivers and streams are down low enough, it shouldn’t cause any widespread problems,” said J.D. Kesler, deputy director for the Vigo County Emergency Management Agency in Terre Haute. The county sits at the northern end of a swath of southwest Indiana that remained in “exceptional drought” on drought maps released Thursday.
Indiana Homeland Security Director Joe Wainscott said the best thing state residents could do was to have emergency kits ready and take any needed steps well in advance of the storm.
“We hope folks are thinking about preparedness and doing some things for themselves and their families now to get ready,” he said, noting that emergency responders could be stretched thin over the weekend. “Our emergency responders need to be able to help those in need who need the most.”
He also recommended motorists slow down and pay close attention to traffic.
A webcast on the weather service’s website for Indianapolis says tropical storms are prone to produce brief, weak tornadoes, and the greatest probability for that occurring in Indiana is Sunday.
