The Salem Leader
Educationally Speaking
June 23, 2008
Justin Harter
My Adventures in a Flood
I’m thoroughly convinced that terrorists are manipulating the jet stream. This can be the only good reason why on Saturday, June 7, 2008 an ordinary two-hour trip from Indy to Salem became an eight-hour nightmare.
I woke up at 6 that Saturday morning and headed out my front door at 7. The plan was to arrive in Salem by 9 for a car service and get a few other errands done around town. As I left my home and hopped on the interstate bypass around Indy, I saw three separate bolts of lightning on three separate occasions strike three separate electrical wires shooting off sparks and a flurry of light and sound. Shortly thereafter, the rains rushed right in.
Now, I’ve never driven through a hurricane before, but I’m pretty sure that if I ever do, I’ll know what to expect based on my experiences a few weeks ago. The rain was pounding down, ponding on the highway and feverishly pushing cars around and slowing us all down below 35 MPH.
As I kept driving, inching forward ever so slightly, I neared Seymour and the rains receded and the skies opened up to a lovely morning sky. God must like the southern part of the state more, I guess.
I arrived in Salem about 20 minutes late and puttered around getting what I needed to get done out of the way. At around noon, something told me that I should probably be leaving. I felt, in some way, that I might need a few extra minutes to get back home.
So, I left town and quickly jaunted over to Scottsburg and hopped on I-65. As I was traveling northbound, Indiana State Troopers had parked across the highway and were diverting travelers onto US 50. Not knowing what was going on and being irked that something was impeding my return home, I just got off the highway, went to a fork in the road, turned around and hopped right back on I-65 just like everyone else in front of me. This is the moral of my story: when a badge-toting police officer directs you and everyone else off a major US highway, it’s probably because something has gone terribly wrong up ahead.
I, of course, didn’t realize this until half an hour later when I was again diverted off the highway in Edinburgh just north of Columbus. This time, there was no getting back on the highway. I figured it was just another random accident and I’d just hop up US 31. Turns out God decided Indiana was no better than New Orleans and walloped half the state with 11 inches of rain, creating three broken dams and a slew of flooded roads. After stalling on US 31, floating along Indiana 252 and hearing that Indiana 37 was also submerged under floodwaters, I opted to head east to hit Indiana 9. Except, I took a turn at some point thinking I could navigate “by just driving north a really long time”.
That was not wise, as I ended up on backcountry roads in rural Bartholomew, Shelby and Johnson counties. Roads were washing away, some complete with misty waterfalls and other roads were being flooded as I was driving around not knowing where I was going. My journey into rural areas led me to stop and ask the locals for a way out. Their responses, while friendly, were all wrong as the roads they told me to take were already gone. At one point, three vehicles, myself included, parked at a four-way stop to converse and share our ideas for escape.
As water kept inching higher, the highway departments were setting up “Road Closed” signs faster than I could get out of my 1-mile caged radius. After calling friends in the hopes they would have a map or a computer and losing my cell phone connectivity on numerous occasions, I finally decided to pull over and watch the massive waterfall on the road before me. Plus, I really had to use the bathroom. It is not wise to watch a waterfall with the urge to make your own.
Eventually, I found my way back to the flood-ridden I-65 and a state trooper informed me that I could now return southbound to Seymour. When I explained I was trying to get one county north to Indianapolis he replied, “Well. Right now there doesn’t appear to be a good way to do that.” He suggested I might try a road with “a flood in progress,” but I didn’t know what that meant and figured my Beetle just as soon not find out, either.
Thus, I traveled back to Seymour and sped to the nearest bathroom, re-fueled on gas and headed into new territory of the eastern edges of the state and almost hit Ohio in order to get far enough east to get home via I-74. I left Salem at noon. I arrived in Indy at 8:20 pm. My trips home will never seem so long ever again.