Storm rocks Daviess County

Mike Grant, Washington Times-Herald, Ind.
·2 min read

Jul. 25—Dozens of cars were left stranded and a barn was damaged as a powerful thunderstorm dropped almost half a foot of water on Daviess County overnight.

"We got a severe thunderstorm with damaging winds. We had a local weather station clock a 60 mile per hour wind. We had about six inches of rain and the rain was coming at about the same time as the 60 mile per hour wind so it blew it sideways," said Daviess County Emergency Management Director Scott Myers. "We might have had even more rain because it was raining sideways at time and there may have been more precipitation than what landed in the rain gauges."

Myers says the storm was even heavier than weather officials had predicted, because it stalled over Daviess County.

"The rain was very heavy," he said. "I know it was a lot more than the weather service anticipated. It appears the storm line just stopped in our area and spent hours just draining heavy rain."

The wind and rain may have caused most of the problems but officials say lightning also contributed to the damage.

"There was a barn south of Plainville on Division Line Road that got damaged," said Myers. "It appears that lightning hit it. It was difficult for the crews to get out and clean up the downed trees and limbs with all of the lightning going on."

An even bigger problem was flash flooding that left vehicle both in Washington and out in the county stranded in high water.

"We had a lot of flash flooding, a lot of county roads were getting flooded, even the highways Business 50E and SR 57S they were getting flooded," said Myers. "The area around Jones and Sons and Casey's was flooded. We had a vehicle get in the ditch there because they couldn't see where the ditch was because of all the water."

Authorities report no injuries as a result of the storm.

The area may not be out of the weather woods yet. The forecast calls for yet more storms throughout the week. While there are no predictions for anything as severe as Sunday night, officials say there is also a potential for a storm to once again stall over the area. They point out that with the saturated ground, flash flooding is an even greater possibility in the area.