In the aftermath of weather related disasters, when the finger pointing ceases, government assistance field offices close, damaged homes are restored, belongings tossed, and most of the world has gone back to normal daily life, it is the flooded and wind ravaged residents whose lives have changed forever.
For Northwest Indiana families who've suffered the brunt of the Little Calumet River's most recent flooding, their lives will now be measured in pre-flood and post-flood terms. They will go to retrieve a belonging and then remember it was lost in the flood. The stench of rotting worms and putrid mud will never be forgotten.
Neither will the help and outreach from families, friends and volunteers who came to their aid in the most desperate of times.
I speak from experience. Our house took over eight feet of toxic, muddy water in a finished basement in the 1981 flood in South Hammond. Our neighbors suffered likewise, some also with several feet of water on the first floor and most of us without flood insurance. For homes without basements across the way in Calumet City, looking into picture windows resembled staring into an aquariums.
We cried as we waded out to receive mops and buckets from the American Red Cross, shook fists at the National Guard's big Army trucks creating waves in our flooded streets, and just wished the sightseers would go away.
In the aftermath, we formed the South Hammond Flood Action Committee, insisting the city sell municipal bonds to build a levee. A year later, as the dike neared completion, the river rose again. The city strategically dumped loads of sand straight off the trucks. No time for sand bagging.
When things run amuck, one person or one entity often becomes the scapegoat, but sometimes the ineptitude is several layers deep. The Little Calumet River Basin Development Commission has drug out flood protection forever. U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky's and the community's anger is well understood.
But the Indiana Legislature's trickle of funding to match federal dollars, property owners unwilling to grant access for levee work, and the U.S. Army Corps, which hardly ever moves at lightning speed, can also be placed in the blame column, as can the very size and political underpinnings of the commission.
Quasi-government bodies containing many members representing different appointing authorities can be unwieldy. Large boards tend not to be thoroughly engaged.
A smaller board appointed by a single elected official with an encompassing constituency residing along the length and breadth of the river is what is needed.
The opinions are solely those of the writer. Contact her at janetcopywrite@sbcglobal.net.
