Shoals man among those drowned in floodwaters

By The Associated Press

SHOALS (AP) — The body of David S. Butler, 46, was discovered in floodwaters in Martin County on Thursday.

Butler’s family notified the Martin County Sheriff’s Department on Wednesday night that he had not arrived home from work. By 7 p.m. Thursday he was listed as missing and Major T.A. Burkhardt and Butler’s relatives began a search for the missing Shoals man.

Burkhardt was called to Low Gap Road at 9:12 p.m. after Butler’s van was discovered by his brother and a stepson, who had pulled David Butler’s body from the floodwaters.

The Martin County Coroner, Mark Franklin, was called in and declared Butler dead at the scene of the accident.

According to Burkhardt’s report, it appeared that Butler’s van ran into high floodwater on Low Gap Road and hit the strong current causing the vehicle to be swept more than 100 yards down stream. The van came to rest on some trees with only part a small portion of the driver’s side of the van out of the water.

Burkhardt was assisted by Sheriff Tony Dant, Conservation officer Eric Doane and Martin County Ambulance Service.

A crane pulled a car with three bodies inside from a flooded quarry on Thursday, three days after investigators believe it crashed into the normally dry pit in northwestern Indiana.

The bodies of two women and a man were found inside the car after a two-hour operation to pull it from about 55 feet of water. State Conservation Officer Matt Tholen said the car likely plunged into the quarry on Monday, when the area was blanketed with heavy fog that police blamed in crashes that killed three others.

The discovery of the bodies came as rivers crested Thursday in many flooded areas across much of northern Indiana, although forecasters believe it could be a week or more before the water fully recedes.

Carmel firefighters used a boat to rescue three people from the flood-swollen White River early Thursday evening after their canoe capsized near Indianapolis’ northside.

The Tippecanoe River was down nearly 2 feet from the major flood stage of 15 feet it reached on Wednesday about 20 miles north of Lafayette. The same stretch of river saw major flooding last month.

Several state highways remained closed at spots in northern Indiana after up to 3 inches of rain this week combined with melting snow to flood several areas. Fort Wayne had many streets under water, but officials there called off their request for volunteers to help fill sandbags.

Floodwaters from the Wabash River surrounded several properties in the Lafayette area, where National Weather Service hydrologist Al Shipe said the river was expected to crest on Thursday. As that crest moves downstream, more flooding was expected between Lafayette and Terre Haute.

“There will be a lot of roads under water and some agricultural levees are going to overtopped,” Shipe said.

In Kentland, investigators believe the car ended up in the quarry about 40 miles northwest of Lafayette after the driver did not see a stop sign, causing the car to go through the intersection and crash through a chain-link fence gate and a guardrail before falling into the water.

A diver who reached the car on Wednesday believed it held two bodies, but poor visibility and the water’s 36-degree temperature made additional work dangerous, Tholen said.

Killed were Mirna Estela Magana-Valencia, 22, Roxana Garcia Hayde, 29, and Santiago Amaya, 58, of Monon, authorities said. Tholen said he did not know if they were related.

One of the other fatal crashes during Monday’s dense fog happened when a semitrailer traveling on U.S. 41 in Boswell drove into a freight train.

Meanwhile, several neighborhoods remained flooded Thursday in Fort Wayne, where the St. Marys River was not expected to crest until Saturday. Bob Kennedy, the city’s public works director, said crews were using pumps and placing sandbags to help protect homes.

Rescue workers used a boat on Thursday to reach a man trapped in a pickup truck in Huntington County, about 15 miles southwest of Fort Wayne. He was sitting in waist-deep water and taken to a hospital for treatment of hypothermia, emergency workers said.

The floodwaters along the Tippecanoe River near Monticello surrounded Dennis Kellar’s home just weeks after the flood that forced him to replace walls, flooring and kitchen cabinets.

“Unbelievable,” he said. “I spent $17,500 out of my pocket to get back in my home. ... We’ll probably have to do it again.”

It could be more than a week before many northern Indiana rivers return to their normal banks and that flooding was expected along the Wabash River as the crest moves south of Terre Haute toward Vincennes, said Shipe of the weather service.

“The lowlands will be completely gone, they’ll be completely under water,” he said. “If you are on the wrong side of a levee down there, you’re going to be wet.”

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