A thunderstorm that stretched from Saturday evening to early Sunday caused thousands of power outages and damage to trees and property in portions of Bartholomew County.
More than 2,000 homes were without power at the peak of the storm, according to Duke Energy and Bartholomew County REMC, but most homes and businesses had power by late morning Sunday.
Much of the storm damage in Bartholomew County happened when the storms swept across the southern half of the county, with high winds cracking apart and uprooting trees in residential neighborhoods and damaging ball diamonds near Southside Elementary School.
The hardest-hit area was around County Road 200S, near the fairgrounds.
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The Shadow Creek subdivision saw damage in the form of siding blown off of homes, at at least one home with a portion of its roof blown off, said Shannan Hinton, Bartholomew County Emergency Management director. Also in the area, a barn near a farmhouse was blown down, she added.
Larry Wetzel and his family and neighbors spent Father’s Day cleaning up a 30-foot tree that splintered in their front yard at 2920 Wandering Way in the Cross Creek subdivision.
The Wetzel family was taking shelter in a half-bath in the interior of the home at about 8 p.m. when Wetzel said he saw that the wind was swirling and blowing debris around the home. The tornado sirens were going off as the wind picked up.
The family has lived in the house for about 20 years, and estimated that’s about how old the front-yard tree was.
Neighbor Nate Hinckley, who was manning the chain saw, had sweat dripping from his face as he continued to cut the tree into manageable pieces for family members to move to the curbside. They estimated it would take about two to three hours to cut it up and get it to the curb.
“What a Father’s Day,” he said, smiling.
In addition to that cleanup, Wetzel’s next-door neighbors, the Misuda family, were cleaning up from a 50-foot tree in a neighbor’s yard behind them that split and toppled into their storage shed and flattened a fence.
Ken Misuda said the family heard a sort of rumbling sound as they also took shelter in a bathroom in the home, and heard the strong winds coming through the subdivision.
Columbus North High School’s baseball field had extensive wind damage, with the outfield fences blown over toward the ground and equipment and fence coverings blown about the fields.
Nearby, Dunn Stadium also suffered damage to fencing and signage, and a broken utility pole and downed trees, according to the Bartholomew County Parks Foundation’s Facebook page.
There were several trees uprooted behind Southside Elementary School.
Hinton said the National Weather Service in Indianapolis planned to visit the County Road 200S area to determine whether a tornado touched down or if straight-line winds caused the damage.
Sunday afternoon, a portion of County Road 250S was closed as wires were down near the entrance to the stadium and BMX park, and utilities workers were working at the scene.
Radar reports Saturday night indicated possible rotational activity, but no tornado touchdown has been confirmed, Hinton said. The pattern of debris suggests straight line winds as the most likely reason for the damage, she added.
Fortunately, no injuries were reported, Hinton said.
Bartholomew County E-911 director Todd Noblitt said the dispatch center received 135 calls for service from people seeking help from police, firefighters and emergency medical personnel, from about 8:40 p.m. Saturday to midnight.
Total phone calls to the dispatch center were at 212, with 54 of those being direct calls to 911 for help after local residents reported seeing funnel clouds, possible house fires, trees down and power lines down.
In addition to those calls, Noblitt said police, fire and ambulance personnel were also being dispatched to several car accidents, including an inverted vehicle, and a call about a patient who was pregnant — normal emergency calls.
Four dispatchers were working when the first tornado warning was issued and Noblitt said he called in additional staff to handle the phone call load — at one point, eight dispatchers were handling the emergency calls, including one who had just finished a 12-hour shift and returned to continue working and another that was scheduled to start a shift at 2 a.m. Sunday and came in early.
“They did a great job,” Noblitt said.
The greatest concern now is flooding in portions of the county.
The National Weather Service estimated that 2 to 4 inches of rain has fallen since Saturday in the Bartholomew County area.
NWS has issued a flood warning for East Fork White River in Columbus for this morning until late Tuesday night. The river was at 3.4 feet as of Sunday morning. Flood stage is 9 feet, and the river is expected to rise above flood stage by this morning and rise to about 9.9 feet by this evening before falling below flood stage by Tuesday afternoon.
When the river reaches 10 feet, every Bartholomew County road that approaches or crosses the East Fork White River, including Southern Crossing, is affected by floodwaters, the weather service said.
By Sunday morning, high water had been reported at the following locations:
County Road 750S at U.S. 31
County Road 1200E north of County Road 200S
County Road 300S east of County Road 750E
State Road 7 at County Road 450E
County Road 500N east of County Road 825E
State Road 58 between county roads 550S and 650S
Mill Race Park in Columbus and County Road 800S in southern Bartholomew County were expected to flood when the East Fork White River goes over flood stage today, and the southbound lanes of State Road 11 near Garden City briefly had high water Sunday afternoon, before it cleared off the roadway.
