Amazing
June 10th, 2008, 7:28 am · Post a Comment · posted by aubreywoods
I woke up early Sunday morning to take the dog for his morning walk. Little did I know what kind of day I had staring me in the face.
As the dog and I headed into downtown Ewing, Brownstown Police Officer John Long stopped me and said it looked like I had a long day ahead of me.
I asked him why and he said he had just heard a report on his scanner that they were evacuating Little York because of flooding.
I said something to the effect of “great” and walked on, but a few minutes later, Long caught up with me again and said he had told me wrong.
They weren’t evacuating Little York, they were evacuating Little Acres.
I still haven’t decided whether I need to thank John or not for making my day.
His information however, changed things dramatically for me because Little Acres is in Jackson County whereas Little York is in Washington County.
The dog and I quickly finished our walk and I woke my wife to tell her I was leaving.
I also tried to wake my 15-year-old son to see if he wanted to tag along, but that was a futile effort.
By the time I made it to Little Acres off Indiana 11 north of Seymour, most of the evacuation was completed although flood waters completed covered Indiana 11 just east of the Interstate. I did have the opportunity to take some photographs of a frightened deer caught in a fence along the road. The poor thing was able to free itself after a few minutes. I hoped it survived.
That’s a sight I’ve not seen in my 22 years living in Jackson County.My day, however, was finished. After speaking with my wife and my editor, I learned that evacuations were in progress in areas on the northwest side of Seymour.
I headed that way and spent most of the rest of Sunday morning and afternoon taking pictures of and talking to people leaving their homes because of rising flood waters from the East Fork of the White River.
About 4 p.m., I headed home to take a break, but later in the evening, my wife, son and I headed to Medora to check out the situation in that small southwestern Jackson County town.
The scene there was amazing. The first thing we spotted other than the normal roadblocks were a large group of people of all ages filling sandbags.A walk down Perry Street revealed that flood waters were beginning to creep into the business portion of the town. The population of the town also looked like it was more than doubled.
There was almost a festive atmosphere as children and adults rode their bicycles around viewing the rising flood waters.
At one point, I even saw a couple of kids playing in flood waters along a sidewalk on Perry Street.The things I will remember about the June 8, 2008, flood, however, is the how everyone pitched in and helped out their friends in neighbors.
In Seymour, I saw many people helping others remove furniture, televisions and other items from homes that looked to be in the path of flooding.
I saw similar actions by others in Medora, and interestingly enough many of those involved in the sandbagging efforts in that town there were teenagers, who spent hours working to help others. No surprise there becuase as the parent of a teenage, I know what they are capable of doing if they feel the need.
I don’t know how many times throughout the day that I heard people telling others to let them know if they needed help.
It seems people are always voicing those words although the sincerity often doesn’t accompanied them. The sincerity was there Sunday.
I don’t think the people of Jackson County are any different than those anywhere else or any better when it comes to helping out their family, friends and neighbors.
But it sure is nice to see people pull together in time of needs instead of arguing over issues that really don’t amount to a hill of beans.
