Governor Tours Storm, Flood-Damaged Towns

MOSCOW, Ind. -- Gov. Mitch Daniels again toured storm and flood-ravaged sections of Indiana Wednesday after he requested that nearly half of the state's counties be declared disaster areas.

Daniels offered support and comfort to Hoosiers in need. There's plenty of damage left to survey, and the governor made stops in four communities.

Wednesday morning, Daniels toured Moscow, a rural Rush County town hit by an EF-3 tornado that destroyed eight homes and heavily damaged 30 others.

Daniels walked where a Diane Hester's home once stood. The 66-year-old woman's life was saved by a tree limb that impaled her.

"It sounds like a terrible thing, but later we discovered that if not for that, she would have been thrown into a river and almost certainly drowned," Daniels said. "So, it was at first telling a terrible tragedy that turned out to be a miracle."

A 122-year-old, 336-foot-long covered bridge, iconic to the community, was also destroyed by the tornado. It has special meaning to people in the town.

"My husband's great grandfather ... was builder of the bridge," said Sally Colestock. "To see it go down was really rough."

It will take as much as $5 million to rebuild the bridge.

Daniels also stopped in Hope, Spencer and Franklin Wednesday afternoon -- all communities stricken by record flooding, 6News' Derrik Thomas reported.

President George W. Bush approved a disaster declaration for 29 Indiana counties earlier this week. Daniels requested that another 15 counties be added so farmers can qualify for emergency loans.