Collaborations can be an important form of storytelling, and can provide muscle even if you are far away from where the event is taking place. I co-wrote the story below about devastating floods in Franklin, Ind., working from my desk in Indianapolis with a copy editor who served as field reporter. I also took the photos shot by a teen and assembled them together in a video montage, with the sound being a taped interview between the two of us. It was produced on deadline.
Man vs. nature: one tough fight
One family's experience, Home on high ground becomes refuge for others
BY TOM SPALDING AND MICHELLE WATSON
FRANKLIN, Ind. -- Garry and Terri Petersen looked out for their neighbors Saturday while keeping a close eye on the creeks.
Hurricane and Youngs creeks, generally shallow enough that you can wade through and catch crawdads and minnows, spilled over their banks and sent a torrent of brown water through streets that had not seen such a deluge in residents' lifetimes.
With property higher than most, the Petersens' Civil War-era home served as a shelter for about 30 neighbors who, like many in the community, were either inconvenienced or flooded out of their properties.
As he spoke by phone Saturday evening, Garry Petersen said water was within a stone's throw of his house.
"We've got bags packed," he said. "Several of our neighbors have lost their homes. It's quite sad. It's the highest everyone's ever seen it."
The couple's 17-year-old son, Erik -- who thought his biggest adventure of the day was in taking a 41/2-hour SAT at the nearby high school Saturday morning -- spent most of his afternoon using his digital camera to snap photos. He created a special Web site for the dramatic images of flooding and linked to it from his Facebook page.
How much damage occurred in the town of more than 20,000 won't be known for days.
Water flowed onto the first floor of Johnson Memorial Hospital in Franklin, but no patients had to be moved.
Cars were submerged up to their windshields in the parking lot of the Oren Wright Building, which houses Johnson County government offices, and Indiana National Guard troops rerouted traffic around Franklin's main street.
Some Franklin College buildings were flooded and damaged. Greenlawn Cemetery was underwater.
The water rose to cover the first-floor windows of Parkside Apartments about 4 p.m. It was almost to the door handles of Franklin Auction on South Jackson Street. Graham's Body Shop next door was mostly underwater, with the door nearly covered. That flooding extended all the way to Jefferson Street, where water covered the sidewalks at the corner and had likely soaked at least six businesses.
Petersen said he knows firsthand that the town lost at least 100 homes.
No one saw it coming, he said.
"We shrugged -- we didn't think it'd be that bad. Then the water jumped the creek."
Terri Petersen lamented that there isn't a warning system for floods like there is for a tornado. Since they'd escaped winds and tornadoes, nobody thought twice about the threat of water in a place that hasn't seen such flooding since 1913.
"People slept in and didn't think to check," she said. "It came so quick and came so fast."
Their neighbor Vicco Von Stralendorff has lived in Franklin since 1956.
Asked if he could recall anything as terrible: "Never, never."
Call Star reporter Tom Spalding at (317) 444-2803.
