Fort Wayne, Indiana - First Flood of 2009

March 11 - 13, 2009
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All Images © 2009 by Robert E Pence

Heavy rains over the weekend, on top of already-saturated ground, caused the river to rise rapidly. City crews started
building a clay temporary levee on Monday, and were well ahead of the rising water. However, the gates were closed
that prevent floodwater from
backing up into the storm sewer system. Water flowing down the storm sewers from higher areas had no place to go. Storm grates began regurgitating the water into the street behind the levee, and city
crews brought in sandbags and pumps to protect low-lying homes.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Pumping storm sewer water into the river

City equipment and workers pile sandbags.

Wednesday, March 12, 2009

Storm sewer backup has nearly covered the intersection at Thieme and Wayne, a block south and just a block from
my house.

The river has continued to rise and is about to run around the end of the levee. Soon trucks will bring in more clay.

Water boils up from a storm grate where the alley between Wayne and Berry
Streets ends at Thieme Drive. The water flows along the curb downhill toward
Berry Street & Thieme Drive.

Three pumps working on the storm sewers at Berry & Thieme appear to have the situation well under control.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Tire Trouble

Twenty-four hours earlier the situation here looked completely under control, and officials thought the worst was past
along the St Marys River. Then the crest on the St Joseph River arrived, and combined with an already-overloaded
Maumee River, caused a backup that extended for a couple of miles upstream on the St Marys. While the river south
of town had dropped to 17 feet, nearer the confluence it surged to more than 22 feet and flooded Berry & Thieme
again. City crews brought in another pump and more clay.

The pink tape around the tree marks the level of a hundred-year flood. At that point I start to get water in the
basement of my rental house. If I recall correctly, water has reached the hundred-year-flood level three times since
1978. Maybe it's time to recalibrate the statistics?

Friday, March 13, 2009

Three pumps are holding their own, and the river level is starting to fall.

Some views around the vicinity of Thieme Drive and West Main Street and the 1911 Thieme Drive Overlook.

See the railing just poking above the water on the left, just this side of the railroad bridge? That's where the Rivergreenway
goes under the railroad. The railroad bridge is on the Norfolk Southern's former Nickel Plate line that
follows the route of the Wabash-Erie Canal through downtown.

The house where actress Carole Lombard, AKA Jane Peters, was born.

Monday, March 16, 2009
Delayed Aftermath

With the exception of a few older houses like mine, most of the area along
Thieme Drive wasn't developed until around 1911 and later, through the early
1920s. Before development, much of it was low-lying land, and I think there
might have been a ravine or creek bed running in to the river. The street
wasn't built until around 1911, and at some earlier time the original route of
the Fort Wayne and Southwestern interurban ran approximately where the
street lies. Test borings and erosion have shown that some of the fill is coal
ash, maybe from the interurban power plant, and a substantial layer of clay
with building debris (bricks, roof slates, etc.) overlies the native sand
and clay mix.

The area lies on the downstream, outside of a curve in the river, and I had
noticed more than twenty years ago that during periods of high water the river
was cutting into the clay and sand and undermining the fill layer on top,
possibly endangering the street. I tried a few times to report the problem to
the street department and didn't get any serious response. Finally I was
advised by a city planner to contact Flood Control, and got immediate
response. They started looking for a way to stabilize the undercut section.

Shortly after Flood Control started working on a solution, a section gave way,
and about thirty linear feet of fill, about four feet wide, dropped about ten feet,
trees and all. That's when the Army Corps of Engineers got involved and
proposed a flood wall to withstand a hundred-year flood plus two feet. By my

recollection from attending some neighborhood meetings at the time, there were objections to the floodwall from a few people for various reasons, most
of which I personally can't support. The whole thing see-sawed back and forth
as planners and engineers tried to appease everyone, and eventually the Corps allocated the money elsewhere. The riverbank stabilizaton seemed to
go dormant along with the floodwall proposal.

Today:

The prolonged high water turned the underlying strata into slurry, and when the
water receded it took the slurry with it. An addition forty or fifty feet of
riverbank slid to the water level, with the cave-in area coming to within a foot
of the pavement. With the soil and fill under the street still saturated and
seeping water, I don't think it would take a very heavy load to collapse part
of the street.