Recent flood damaged from the previous weeks’ rain fall was the top of the agenda for the City Council meeting in Huntingburg last night. Mayor Denny Spinner gave a breakdown on the events.
One aspect of the breakdown was the rarity of the storm, which for Huntingburg was marked as a thousand year event. The average recurrence of precipitation levels was broken down by a chart from the National Weather Service. Foe example, 1.88 inches of rain over the course of of 6 hours is a one year event, fairly typical. For a thousand year event, 7.18 inches of rain over 6 hours, 8.24 inches over 12 hours, and 9.92 inches over 24 hours. Huntingburg received over 7 inches in 6 hours, over 9 inches in 12 hours, and over 12 inches in 24 hours. An examination of Lake levels for the Huntingburg City Lake showed a rough estimate of 115 million gallons of water added in 24 hours time.
The storm left a significant amount damage throughout the city, including the street department building and Utility yard which has the added issue of salt mixing with waters potentially damaging some equipment. Photos of water damage at the city parks and water levels at the water department were shown.
During the 2017 rain event the city saw several organizations assist. Beyond Dubois County Emergency Management and the American Red Cross; United Way of Southern Indiana, Catholic Charities Indianapolis, and the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief all came to assist. The city was assisted in setting up a 211 Call Center which saw over 140 calls in the first couple days, and it also lead joint creation of the Dubois County Disaster Relief Form through cooperation of Huntingburg, Jasper, and Ferdinand. This is in part to help collected data and information to show the wide range of impact this storm has had in order to potentially get state or federal relief dollars to help those in need. Current the calls and information sought has been from residents. Dubois County EMA is now seeking info from businesses and non-profits effected by the storms. They can find the link to the forms to fill out on the city’s website; huntingburg-in.gov.
