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Strike two
The Bresnahans thought they were on their way to recovery. But on Feb. 3, less than a month after the flood, the unthinkable happened, and disaster struck again. "The second flood almost hurt more than the first, because everything we thought we had salvaged was taken from us," Dave says. "But we knew we had to keep going. We had nowhere to walk away to. So many people were there to help us. Our friends, family and co-workers got us through it."
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| The frame was the only part of their house that was salvageable. The Bresnahans were among 30,000 Hoosiers who were victims of widespread flooding throughout the state in 2008. |
The only part of the house that was salvageable was the frame. After six months of hard work, the Bresnahans moved back into their home, hoping they won't encounter another flood—or floods—of this magnitude.
What the Bresnahans and other residents who shared their ordeal experienced was La Niña—the same phenomena that would later cause flooding in the central and southern parts of the state. More flooding in northern Indiana came in September.
"During La Niña, the surface temperature of the Pacific Ocean is a few degrees lower than normal. The jet stream was pushed northward, so moisture from the Gulf of Mexico was pushed into northern Indiana," says Ken Scheeringa, associate state climatologist. "As La Niña began to fade, it continued to bring heavy rains to the state, but that moisture was routed farther south in Indiana."
Part of what made La Niña so devastating, was that it caused flooding in unexpected places. "Many of the areas that flooded in both January and June were areas that don't normally flood," Scheeringa says. "People were surprised because flooding was so widespread, and much of it happened far from any rivers. Several of the affected areas had never expected anything like this."
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| Shelby County farmer Mike Steinbarger surveys damage to his fields from the top of an earthen levee that separates his farm from the Flat Rock River. The levee collapsed during the June 2008 flood, and the raging water washed away valuable topsoil and left behind gullies and debris. |
Agriculture dealt a blow
Mike Steinbarger, a farmer in Shelby County, was in one of those areas. He watched helplessly as rainfall equal to the amount that fell during Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on central Indiana agriculture.
The excess water destroyed an 80-year-old levee that separated Steinbarger's farm from the Flat Rock River. The raging floodwaters overflowed the river's banks, covering some of Steinbarger's best farmland and leaving behind gullies and debris. "We got 12-and-a-half inches of rain in 6 hours. There was so much water that the levee just couldn't hold," he says. "This ground was some of the best that we farmed, but when the floodwaters receded, a foot of sand and gravel was left behind. Without removing that debris, the fertility of the land will be lost."
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