Carroll County keeping eyes on the sky

CARROLL COUNTY, Ind. (WLFI) - Carroll County Residents are keeping an eye on the sky.  Carroll County Emergency Management Director Dave McDowell said this isn't a repeat of last year's flooding disaster yet.  More rain will mean more water in an already swollen Tippecanoe river. Carroll Emergency Management Director Dave McDowell said last year's flooding that wiped out many low-lying Carroll County homes resulted from Oakdale Dam flow four times the amount this weekend.

"Last year at this time we had over 4 inches of rain over our entire watershed area.  This year we haven't reached that yet.  So far, we're in luck that way," said Dave McDowell.

Normal flow is 1500 cubic feet a minute, right now it's 9000.

"What we have right now is water that is 5 or 6 feet deeper than normal.  You can see the handicapped accessible sign there.  In our flood, water got up over the bridge behind us here.  Right now, we are in pretty good shape, knock on wood," said Dave McDowell.

Last year, Richard Sandberg's home just downstream from the dam was totaled by flood waters.

"We had 4 and a half feet of water in the house. The house is still there. We were hoping it would be wash away. It's unrepairable, there's nothing we can do with it. It's gone. We still owe on it, still making payments on it. We just bought it a year ago," said Richard Sandberg.

Normally, you can walk to the other bank of the Tippecanoe here at 725N. McDowell said two things are working in resident's favor: Less water, and better preparedness.  Although the water level is manageable now, more rain in the Oakdale watershed would not be good news.