Rocky Ripple residents want answers about the city’s response to historic flooding that swept the Indianapolis area starting Aug. 14. At two town meetings last week, the White River community wrestled with what went right and what went wrong.
The town’s last exit stayed open only after a chaotic, late-night scramble. Officials now say the water never reached the level that would have required closing it. But no single official has said who would have made that call, and residents say that was not clear to them the night it mattered.
“We’ve all been afraid that if something like this happened, they were going to close us in, and we couldn’t get out,” Town Council President Randy Sanders told community members Wednesday. “And all of a sudden, Friday night, our worst nightmare was coming true.”
Town Councilor Megan Hulland told WFYI the town first understood the gates wouldn't close until water reached a set level, based on what officials first told them Aug. 14. Around 11:45 p.m., she said, that changed. The Department of Public Works notified the Indianapolis Fire Department it intended to close the gates.
Anjuli Shivshanker and Ellie Wind, two residents, told WFYI the city sent an emergency alert to the area.
“URGENT: Residents in Rocky Ripple need to leave as DPW will be closing the flood gates as they were previously advised,” a screenshot of the alert around 12:30 a.m. shared on Facebook and obtained by WFYI read, directing residents to emergency shelters.
Wind said she received the alert while Shivshanker did not.
IFD arrived in the neighborhood to alert residents with sirens, lights and loudspeakers, according to interviews with several residents, town leaders and remarks at the meetings. They said they were filling sandbags when firefighters told them flooding was imminent, they should evacuate and the floodgates would close. By then, about 60% of the town had evacuated, according to Hulland.
Confusion and anger followed at the 53rd Street gate, with a threat to ram it and fire crews leaving the scene over safety concerns, Hulland said. The situation was resolved when City-County Councilor John Barth "kind of brokered a truce" over the phone with town leaders and DPW. The call clarified only the 52nd Street gate would remain closed, not the 53rd Street gate.
Residents pressed for a name of the person in charge of the decision at Wednesday’s meeting. Metropolitan Emergency Services Agency Director Jacob Spence said DPW, with its engineers and operations staff, told his agency they were closing the gates.
“They told us they were going to have to raise the flood gates,” Spence said at Wednesday’s meeting. “They were telling me they were walling off a town. So in our world, that's a life safety initiative, and I wanted to make sure that the word got out as much as possible.”
Spence said he asked IFD to go door to door to spread the word.
DPW responds
DPW responded to WFYI’s questions Monday. In an email, Daniel Stevenson, the department’s deputy director of policy and planning, said the river gauges showed the White River was projected to reach the 52nd Street floodgate’s closure threshold under the Indianapolis Flood Response Plan in the early hours of Aug. 15.
Stevenson said that the 53rd Street flood gate, which sits at a higher elevation, never closed, the river “never reached the level to necessitate closure, and DPW “never issued orders to do so.”
The email said none of the department’s public messaging indicated the 53rd Street gate was closing, and shared department social media and email messages from 1:01 and 1:44 a.m. Saturday advising the town’s residents to evacuate: “The 52nd St. flood gate is expected to close at 2 a.m. The 53rd St. gate is being closely monitored; should a closure be necessary, it would likely be in the very early hours of the morning.”
That message differs from the alert Shivshanker and Wind received around 12:30 a.m., which said DPW would be “closing the flood gates” without specifying which one.
On who had authority to make the call, Stevenson said no single official decides. Decisions to activate flood gates are informed by the Indianapolis Flood Response Plan and made by DPW teams, he said.
“This plan, developed by engineers and flood control experts, again notates very specific water levels for the White River for the more than 100+ flood gates and other flood control infrastructure should be activated,” Stevenson wrote in the email. “Determination on closing the flood gates is a shared responsibility between Indy DPW Stormwater Engineering (monitoring river gauge data) and Operations (in-field verification).”
Town Marshal Mike Kiefer said DPW had told the town for years, including before they were installed, that the gates would not close until floodwaters reached four to five feet inside Rocky Ripple. The actual level that night, he said, was 13.5 feet on the town’s gauge — three feet below that threshold.
“That's where my problem was: is that there wasn't the point to where, you know, we're throwing the towel in,” Kiefer said.
For years, Rocky Ripple and Indianapolis have not agreed on how to strengthen the levee protecting the town from the river. The complex relationship was on display at both meetings last week.
Sandbagging began days before the flood reached Indianapolis. Overnight Aug. 14, water levels increased to alarming heights and the effort picked up.
By Saturday, residents and town leaders were digging out a sand volleyball court in Hohlt Park, and the operation had grown to hundreds of volunteers from the surrounding area by the evening. At that point, DPW trucks were at Rocky Ripple delivering sandbags, and the town had exhausted its supply, according to Hulland, until they received hundreds more from a sandbag company.
Sanders and Hulland sent frequent updates over the town’s Facebook page. The updates worked for residents who used social media, but not everyone did. City-County Councilor John Barth, who represents the area, was on the scene filling sandbags and coordinating with constituents and contacts at DPW.
Several breaches let water through and some homes flooded, though volunteers and town leaders said the effort to fill more than 15,000 sandbags kept the town from being swept away. Residents credit that effort with saving the town.
What’s next
People gathered at the shelter at Hohlt Park amid a line of shovels and other leftover provisions from the weekend’s efforts for the first meeting Tuesday. It was a regularly scheduled emergency planning meeting held by the neighborhood association.
More than 30 people who had emerged as leaders during the crisis attended. They discussed nearly all aspects of the flood response — from groundhog holes and rootballs in the path of volunteers laying sandbags to how coordinating trucks over radios and a chalkboard had helped win the day, despite logistical, material and communication challenges — and a rapidly changing, difficult-to-predict situation.
Sanders and Hulland led the second meeting Wednesday, the town’s regularly scheduled council meeting. Three staff members from the city’s Metropolitan Emergency Services Agency — Deputy Director Ryan Hansome, Director Jacob Spence and Chief Tom Sellas — attended to try to answer questions. Barth and Town Marshal Mike Kiefer also attended.
Representatives from the Department of Public Works, which oversees the city’s floodplain response, did not attend.
More than 50 residents showed up asking for answers about how the problems played out. And they want a permanent solution to prevent future floods.
Spence, the MESA director, said his staff is only four people and could only speak for his agency. He said the city will evaluate its flood response.
“We will do an After Action [Review] for the entire event,” he said. “There is plenty of stuff we can work on.”
The review will include all relevant city agencies, Spence said, and it will be released to the public. Rocky Ripple residents said they want to give input.
People are returning to their homes as the city assesses damage and the focus turns to recovery. Those assessments will factor into whether Indiana receives a federal disaster declaration, which would unlock individual assistance and other funding.
Contact WFYI data journalist Zak Cassel at zcassel@wfyi.org
