Flooding Along Ohio River Affects Southern Indiana
UTICA, Ind. — Sometimes the cost of living alongside a big river like the Ohio is water up to or in your house. This week people in several southern Indiana communities are dealing with those consequences.
“We’re primarily seeing flooding in Utica, some in Jeffersonville,” said Gavan Hebner, emergency management director for Clark County. He said Sellersburg and a few other communities were also dealing with backwater flooding.
While it is trying, it’s not anything they haven’t dealt with before.
“The last time we saw something like this was 2018,” he said. “Something like this is every five or six years.”
He said the messaging has resulted in no injuries or deaths.
“The folks in Utica and along the river, they’re experienced in this type of flooding event. They heeded the warnings and they all evacuated,” said Hebner.
He estimated about 100 structures had been affected as of Wednesday afternoon.
The river was cresting Wednesday in Clark County, said Ron Steve, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Louisville.
“We’re sitting at about 36.5 {ft.}, which is well above the flood stage of 23,” he said.
For Evansville and communities to the west, the crest is expected to come later. But, Steve said the water would likely recede quickly once that happened.