Floods in August that toppled the Hazel Dell Parkway bridge and poured billions of gallons of water into an adjacent quarry also eroded a canyon along Blue Woods Creek and threatened to redirect the White River.
Officials still don't have an estimate on total damage, or exactly when the parkway will reopen.
Jill Sheridan met Carmel Mayor Sue Finkam at the site to talk about the city's response, and to learn how they ultimately avoided a more catastrophic event.
This transcript has been edited for style and clarity.
Jill Sheridan: We are out here at the site near 106th and Hazel Dell. You can see the bridge down. You can see all the extensive damage around us that the flooding caused. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about your reaction when you first realized the significant risk of a "violent event" and what might happen after the initial flooding.
Sue Finkam: Well, you know, we sat in the emergency operations center all day Saturday, all day Sunday, and watching the bridge deteriorate and some other events happen, we were watching the river water come down.
I think it was Monday when we realized this tunnel had gone over 200 feet overnight, and that's when it really hit us. Like, this erosion is moving at a much faster rate, and we're going to have a problem on our hands.
Sheridan: You had the Army Corps of Engineers out here. You had federal officials, state officials, and you did get the message that mother nature will take its course. There's not a lot you can do. But of course your team did not accept that, nor did you.
Finkam: Yeah, and you know it's very sobering for action-oriented people, which I would say a lot of local government people are doers, right? And so it's really sobering to hear you're just going to let this tragedy happen.
And thankfully, we have a team who doesn't quit, and we've got smart people who really just want to just keep trying and you know give it another at bat.
And so I'm so proud of them and the way they work together, making sure that we did everything we possibly could to save this area.
Sheridan: The major risk was going to be this wastewater pipe that did not burst and was saved.
Finkam: The major risk was this force main, 36-inch force main, which carries 90% of our wastewater through it. But also, just south of it is the wastewater treatment plant, and just south of us is Indianapolis.
For the previous, you know, two days, almost 8 billion gallons of water had gone into that quarry, and now we're going to add insult to injury with sewer water and more water.
Our largest worry was that this cavern got back to the river before the river water went down, and the river redirected itself because that would have created all sorts of chaos.
The quarry is almost full, so where does the rest of the water go? And it would have gone everywhere, and that was our biggest worry. And how do we tame that tiger, right?
Sheridan: And we'll probably never know. I mean, we have heard that the significant amount of water that ended up in the quarry likely helped alleviate some of the flooding downstream.
Finkam: I have no doubt that this quarry, which served as a large stormwater detention pond, saved lives and saved millions and millions of dollars of property damage, zero doubt about that.
And so, if there is a silver lining, that would be it.
Sheridan: It is remarkable to see the power of nature here as well on display, but also that this area does not include a lot of homes. In that respect, there was a little bit of a silver lining.
Finkam: Absolutely, we have other creeks similar to this one, just a little north of here, one in the middle of our residential area that we're most concerned about now for recovery.
So, had this happened up there, it would have had devastation. It would have been so much worse had that creek been the one to backflow. But again, I think it just had this giant sucking event with the quarry, and it found its path.
Sheridan: What are we looking at as far as federal assistance? Now we have a major disaster declaration, state assistance. What can Carmel expect?
Finkam: Well, I think two things. Carmel residents now have individual assistance for those who are underinsured or uninsured at all.
So that's a really big piece of mind for them. Second of all, from a Carmel taxpayers' perspective, we know that we won't have to foot all of the bill for the recovery, which is thankful.
And then the third thing, just from an infrastructure standpoint, that's where the state, the city, and the county all come together, get these assets rebuilt, whatever that looks like. And we don't know that yet.
We're you know just looking at engineering options and try to figure out what we can do sooner than later, and then also try to figure out how we can be most efficient and effective with federal dollars. There's still taxpayer dollars. We still want to be good stewards of every dollar we utilize.
Sheridan: Any final thoughts you might have?
Finkam: So I'm just so glad that we were able to work through this, and this is a learning opportunity for the city of Carmel, and frankly, other cities too.
What I'm most interested in now is sitting back, doing our after-action report and really doing two things. One, better understand how we can use this to our advantage moving forward.
How can we be a better team? How can we have better processes? How can we consider redundancies and other things?
And then also, how do we document this for future generations? We literally saw a story as the flooding was happening.
The history center talked about the 1913 flood and how interesting it was in the same exact area. We think 100 years from now, this should be something that future generations study and learn from as well.
Contact WFYI Managing Editor Jill Sheridan at jsheridan@wfyi.org
