Three people died -- including two children in a submerged car -- and hundreds of people were forced from their homes as a result of flooding from heavy rain and melting snow in parts of northwestern and north-central Indiana on Tuesday.
A woman was driving her five children along a flooded road in a rural area near Rochester when
her SUV stalled in the deep water, the Fulton County Sheriff's Department said. The Chevy Tahoe then floated into deeper water near the city 45 miles south of South Bend.
Images: Tippecanoe River Spills Into Homes
The driver, 29-year-old Megihann K. Leininger of rural Fulton County, was able to rescue three of her children, ages 3 months to 4 years. But she was unable to get to 5-year-old Shay Leininger and 2-year-old Ashley Pruitt, who died, the sheriff's department said.
In Remington, about 55 miles southwest of Rochester, a 56-year-old man drowned when his truck was swept into Carpenter Creek floodwaters, said Shawn Brown, a conservation officer with the Department of Natural Resources.
Ronnie D. Napier, of Goodland, may have been on his way to his job at a nearby factory, Brown said.
"Witnesses in the area heard some yelling and they saw him in the creek and they saw him go underneath the bridge and never saw him again," Brown said.
High water prompted closures of parts of several highways, including southbound Intertstate 65 at Indiana 114 just west of Rensselaer in northwestern Indiana, police said.
I-65 reopened early Wednesday morning.
Karen Wilson, Jasper County Emergency Management director, said up to 150 people were evacuated around Remington and up to 30 homes were affected by water that reached waist-high levels in some places. Evacuees were sheltered at churches, and Remington had no power.
Emergencies were declared in Jasper, White, Carroll and Benton counties, where rain pushed rivers and streams over their banks. As many as 6 inches of rain fell in White and Carroll counties, according to 6News meteorolgists.
The emergencies instruct residents to, among other things, travel only when necessary (such as going to and from work) and obey directions given by emergency personnel.
Carroll County Emergency Management director Dave McDowell said a couple hundred homes may be flooded but that many are unoccupied summer residences.
In White County, there were numerous reports of vehicles stranded by floodwaters on county roads. The county's emergency management director, Gordon Cochran, said boats were called out to assist in rescues and that Monticello, Blue Water Beach and Diamond Point were being evacuated.
About 50 homes were evacuated in that county Tuesday morning but more were anticipated, officials said.
Flooding Threatens DamsAccording to the National Weather Service, near-record flooding was reported at the Norway and Oakdale dams near Monticello, a White County city of about 5,700 residents 25 miles north of Lafayette. McDowell said officials were recommending that all residents south of the Oakdale Dam leave their homes.
Water flow at the dams is expected to continue rising through the day and should peak Tuesday evening, the weather service said.
Across a lake from Monticello is Carroll County, where a dispatcher said hundreds of people were being evacuated below the Oakdale Dam. Officials said a little under 100 homes needed to be evacuated from that area, but some of them are seasonal and are not currently occupied, officials said.
Weather officials said they don't expect the dams to fail, but that residents nearby should keep abreast of the "extremely dangerous flood situation."
"The water, either from wind or the flood, is coming over the top of the dam, but it's minimal," White County Sheriff John Roberts said.
A girl, her mother and the child's grandmother were taken from a house by boat as water encroached the home along the Tippecanoe River, south of the Oakdale Dam. Rescuers patrolled the area by boat in search of other families in need of help.
Master Trooper Bill Brooks said the speed of the Tippecanoe River jumped to nearly 27,000 cubic feet per second at around 9 a.m. from nearly 23,000 cubic feet per second at about 7:15 a.m.
U.S. 24 was closed for more than 20 miles between Reynolds and Interstate 65, Brooks said. The Indiana Department of Transportation said several other highways in northwestern Indiana also will be closed until floodwaters recede.
Many county roads were flooded and some were washed out, including Indiana 16 east of Monon and a portion of U.S. 421, officials said.
A mobile home park was also flooded in Monon. Crews were hurriedly bagging sand in Reynolds to take to Monticello in hopes of saving some homes there.
In White County, shelters were set up at the White County Annex Building in Monticello, the civic center in Monon, the fire department in Buffalo and in Wolcott.
Some people chose to stay in their flooded homes next to the Tippecanoe River.
"It's the worst that we've ever had," Cochran said. "Four years ago, in July, we had a lot of flooding, but we didn't have this much."
Paul Dyke, youth minister at First Christian Church in Remington, 25 miles west of Monticello, said about 150 evacuees were taking shelter at the church. The American Red Cross had set up shelters in Lafayette and Delphi and smaller towns along the flood path also had set up places for residents to go.
The National Weather Service issued flood warnings for the area along the Tippecanoe River and along the Elkhart and St. Joseph rivers in northern Indiana.
Rain fell steadily late Tuesday morning, and another inch was possible into the rest of the day, exacerbating an already serious situation.
Another storm that pushed into the state from the southwest Tuesday evening triggered flash flood warnings for Bloomington and several southern Indiana counties. Flooding from that storm, however, was not nearly as severe, said weather service Sally Pavlow, a meteorologist with the weather service's Indianapolis bureau.
Copyright 2008 by TheIndyChannel.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
