Watching, acting cut family's losses

One rural Brownstown family says preparing for last June's flooding along the East Fork of the White River helped prevent more property losses at their home along the river.

On June 8, 2008, the river rose to a near-record 20.92 feet.

Many residents of Medora, Seymour and other rural areas were forced to evacuate their homes.

Linda and Andy Fountain, who live south of U.S. 50 west of Brownstown, recall preparing for the flood and riding out its swiftly moving waters.

"We had a lot of things that we had to move up, things to get out of our garage because the water was going in there," Linda said.

"We knew it was coming," Andy added. "All we could do was make sure all of our stuff was up high enough so nothing would be damaged and make sure we had the time to get it done."

The Fountains did not leave their home during the flood.

"I just hated to see anything happen to the house," Linda said. "I wanted to be here to see if I could stop it hurting anything. You always think of looters. We stayed here to make sure that everything was OK."

"We wanted to watch our property and see where the water would go," Andy added. "I'm glad we did, because we were able to move things around and make adjustments to minimize damage."

Linda was shocked at the severity of the flooding.

"I could not believe that of all the floods that we have lived through, that we had to worry about our house. We thought, ‘All of this water coming from Columbus wouldn't get us.' You could just see it rise slowly.  It was up to the top of our deck, and 6 inches from getting into the house. I could not believe that it would get that high, but it did."

Andy grew up in the house, about a quarter mile northwest of the river.

"That was by far the biggest we've seen," he said. "It was first I've seen water get in any of the buildings."

Although no floodwater reached the Fountains' home, their garage and a farm tool shed took about 13 inches of the floodwater.

Jackson County wasn't alone. It, as well as Bartholomew, Boone, Brown, Clay, Daviess, Dearborn, Decatur, Franklin, Greene, Henry, Jennings, Jefferson, Johnson, Lawrence, Madison, Morgan, Monroe, Ohio, Owen, Ripley, Randolph, Rush, Shelby, Sullivan, Union, Vermillion, Vigo and Wayne counties, were all under federal disaster declarations made by President George W. Bush.

Andy said being prepared - keeping an eye on the weather and river levels north of Jackson County - was critical to their preventing losses of property or worse.

"We always pay attention to what's happening upstream, and we heard what was happening in Columbus. We watched the river levels Saturday night and started moving things out Sunday morning, June 8, 2009, and getting things moved to high ground," he said.

Their last trip out was noon Sunday. That's when the floodwaters were too high to safely navigate. They were stranded at home until that Wednesday, June 11, 2008.