June 9, 2008

Bluff Acres rescue effort

       One woman held on to a firefighter to combat the strong currents in the waist-deep water surrounding her home.  Another woman climbed into a rescue boat from her front door.  About 50 people were evacuated from Bluff Acres, a Center Grove area neighborhood off State Road 37, by the White River Township Fire Department, Fire Chief Jeremy Pell said.  Some left by boat and others were carried in large equipment borrowed from nearby farms and businesses, including a front-end loader, he said.  As the water climbed over her back porch and seeped in through her doors, Joan Berzins ran around her house packing a bag of family photos.  Berzins ran outside and asked rescuers to put her husband, who has suffered more than one stroke and has difficulty walking, in a front-end loader.  She then grabbed on to a firefighter and a neighbor and walked through waist-deep water swirling with currents, wondering what would happen to her home.  Her neighbor, Paula Kenison, frantically called her husband, David, as water crept closer to her home, to the sidewalk, to the front step and then inside.  He had gone to work and then decided to come back home but couldn't get into the neighborhood.  Meanwhile, his wife was grabbing all the linens she could find, towels, sheets and blankets, and stuffing them under the doors to stop the water from coming inside. But the water was coming in too fast for her to stop it.  "Within one hour, it went from seeping in places you could sop up to oh my God, we're going to have to leave because no one can live in this," Paula Kenison said.  David Kenison talked to rescuers who brought a boat to their home's front door, rescuing his wife and their dog.  The two reunited at the nearby White River fire station.

         Terry and Rick Locke watched the waters rise into their yard and then start to build up in their basement.  As more water came in, Terry Locke asked her husband if she should pack a bag.  And they decided that the next rescue crew that came through would take them away from their flooding neighborhood.  "It was rising at an unbelievable pace. We knew it was going to overtake us," Rick Locke said.  Soon after, a rescue boat came through and the Lockes climbed aboard.  They only went a few blocks, but the ride was slow because the boat had to go against strong current, the couple said.  That was the story for many residents in the neighborhood, Pell said.  The fire department got a total of about 45 rescue calls throughout the day, but each time they came to Bluff Acres, they collected multiple people to take to safety, he said.  (Story and photos reprinted with permission from the Daily Journal) 

 

          
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