EMILY FENG, HOST:
At least five states across the Midwest are reeling after storms that started dumping heavy rain early this week, causing significant flooding. Illinois, Iowa and Indiana are among the hardest hit. Indiana Governor Mike Braun declared a state of emergency and mobilized the National Guard after his state received once-in-a-thousand-year rainfall. Nick Swartsell from member station WVXU in Cincinnati spoke to people displaced in communities straddling the Indiana-Ohio state line last night by the flooding Whitewater River.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: It's a party now.
NICK SWARTSELL, BYLINE: Flooding on the Whitewater River is affecting about half a dozen small communities not far west of Cincinnati. Neighbors in the small cities along the southern part of the Ohio-Indiana line gathered to watch water rise into the closed streets early this morning. Not far away, some had to evacuate their homes as the river rose to near-historic levels. A search and rescue crew had to come get Ken Napoli from his house via boat.
KEN NAPOLI: It was coming up. I mean, it went around my house, and I was like, OK, so I'm stuck there. So then I waited. It got a little higher. And then I fell asleep, and I wake up to about a foot of water in my house.
SWARTSELL: Napoli says he's used to water surrounding his property when the river gets high, but he's never had to evacuate before until early this morning. Jennifer Althoff and her daughter were outside the Harrison Community Center, which is serving as a shelter for the roughly 18 people displaced by the flooding so far. They say they were surprised to get notice they needed to leave their house.
JENNIFER ALTHOFF: It was probably like 10 or 11, I had knocks at my door. I'm thinking, I hear something, but I didn't know what it was. And they're like, we need to evacuate. They're evacuating everybody on State Street.
SWARTSELL: Jonathan Witham is executive director for Indiana Homeland Security. He says at least a thousand people across the state have been displaced by flooding this week.
JONATHAN WITHAM: We're seeing some pretty significant damage. We're talking about historic levels of flooding in east central Indiana. We are still in the response phase for that part of the state.
SWARTSELL: Witham says infrastructure, including water treatment facilities, is likely damaged in some areas. He says the state is still taking stock of how bad things are, and it could be a while before they have a full grasp on it.
WITHAM: That will take probably weeks to really determine the total extent of the damage from a flood event. One of the big challenges is you've got to wait for the water to come down to a point where it's safe to go in and inspect homes and talk to residents and see what kind of damage there is.
SWARTSELL: Back on the Indiana-Ohio border, the Whitewater River started receding this afternoon. But it's unclear when residents will be able to return to their houses and what conditions they'll find when they do go back. There's a hazardous weather outlook for the area into Sunday for strong to severe thunderstorms that could cause more flooding, and isolated tornadoes are possible.
For NPR News, I'm Nick Swartsell in Harrison. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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