By Emilee Shake
Washington Times-Herald
WASHINGTON —
Within what seemed to be just minutes, most of Daviess County was submerged. According the National Weather Service, 2 to 3 inches of rain fell on the county in a very short period of time causing flooding in the central and southern parts of the county, said Paul Goss, the emergency management director.
Goss said the storm started in Knox County and came across, staying mostly along US 50. There was some hail, he said, but no destructive hail was reported.
“The southeast part of the county got hit really hard,” Goss said. “They got hit with another storm that came from Pike County.”
While tracking the storm, Goss said originally the school superintendents were corresponding, thinking the storm might be problematic for the school children going home; however, the bus routes were not affected because of the timing of the storm.
“The streets were actually flooded in the city from curb to curb,” Goss said. “It was much heavier rain than I has witnessed in the past.”
City dispatchers said 25 percent of the city streets were flooded. In addition to the flooding, they said 75 percent of the city had power outages.
Because of the severe flooding in the city of Washington, vehicles were stuck in water.
An employee of Big O Tire reported at 4:48 p.m. that there was an accident and a lady was trapped inside her vehicle. At 4:57 p.m., Brock Hamm reported to the city police that he hydroplaned on Front Street, hitting a curb and that water was getting in side his vehicle. The water was so high, he told dispatch, his engine didn’t work.
The street department, line crew, water department and sanitation department were all out responding to the reports coming to the department, a dispatcher said.
Unfortunately, the streets weren’t the only portion of the city that was being covered in water.
The Daviess County Security Center and the Daviess Community Hospital responded quickly to the water intruding into their facilities.
“We’ve had this happen before,” Sheriff Steve Cox said. “We had some vehicles on the lot that were damaged by rain. One of the cars had water on the inside.”
Cox said the location of the security center is down hill, and water tends to accumulate there. Then after so much water is there, it starts pushing up from the drains, so the water is coming down from the sky and up from the drains.
The water came into the lobby, through the waiting room and even some into the dispatch area. The basement of the security center had 2 to 6 inches of standing water. Despite all of the water, Cox said the damage is minimal, only a small area of carpet, and the employees responded quickly to clean up the flooded areas.
In a statement released by Mary Smith, marketing manager at DCH, she said a rush of water came through the doors on the north and east sides of the building as well as up through the drains on the hospital’s first floor.
“Our staff reacted quickly with no interruptions to patient care or services,” Smith wrote. “A crew of housekeepers, maintenance and employees from non patient care areas worked quickly to stop the floods.”
The rain seemed to end as quickly as it began, but law enforcement, city and county employees and others continued to clean up the mess it left behind.
