Historical Society’s Chris Flook recalls historic floods in Muncie

00;00;00;02 - 00;00;21;29 Stan Sollars Well, with last week's flooding -- flooding is still with us. Even as creeks and streams drain, we still have something to talk about and that gets into historical territory. Joining us this morning is Chris Flook, a colleague of mine in the Department of Media. He is a senior lecturer in Ball State’s Department of Media, multiple Emmy winner for motion graphics. 00;00;21;29 - 00;00;38;25 Stan Sollars And he also writes about Muncie and Delaware County history by way of books, articles in the Star Press, in the bygone Muncie series, and in presentations to school and civic groups. And he's an historian with the Delaware County Historical Society. And Chris, welcome. Thank you for coming in. 00;00;38;26 - 00;00;39;25 Chris Flook Yeah, thanks for having me. 00;00;39;26 - 00;00;56;18 Stan Sollars Well, you wrote an article recently, and you write about the history of Muncie and Delaware County, and you observed in that most recent article in the Star Press that the flood was historic here in 2026. And for those listening who don't know, Muncie, what made last week's flood historic? 00;00;56;19 - 00;01;32;17 Chris Flook Well, it's hard to measure it with past floods the extent because we always have this like rain totals and rainfall rate totals. One of the ways to measure it is by river crest. So the height of the river, the largest maximum height of the river during a flood flood stage and what we experienced last week. On Thursday the river crested at like 18.6ft, and that was the highest on record since 1937, the Great Flood of January 1937, and the seventh worst flood overall since when records were measured from 1904. 00;01;32;19 - 00;01;51;11 Stan Sollars Well, what how is the White River different today when compared to the floods of 1913? That I when I was a kid, I was hearing stories about that from folks, older folks. And in 1937, how is the river different, the white River different today than in those two big floods? 00;01;51;13 - 00;02;12;02 Chris Flook Well, two to the biggest things, really, beginning in the in the 18th century, but going into the 19th century, the settlers and their descendants in us destroyed all the wetlands. And so now there's no, like, containment ponds. All the water just goes directly to the streets, streams, creeks and then rivers. So flooding happens faster than what it did, maybe in like 1700. 00;02;12;02 - 00;02;31;13 Chris Flook And then the Army Corps of Engineers. Flooding was a major problem in Muncie, all the way from its founding, all the way through World War Two. And then the Army Corps of Engineers basically built this really substantial levee system that stopped major river flooding in places like Muncie in the 1940s, right around World War two. 00;02;31;15 - 00;02;35;02 Stan Sollars Well, it seems to be a wise thing to do, but who brought them in? 00;02;35;04 - 00;02;57;22 Chris Flook So there was a really terrible flood in 1897, and then Muncie started building levees. Those levees were destroyed in 1904. They rebuilt them. They were destroyed again in 1913. And there was a series of really terrible floods in the 20s. So in the 30s, WPA workers during the Great Depression came in and started building earthen levees. They were destroyed and the Great Flood of 1937. 00;02;57;22 - 00;03;10;03 Chris Flook And there was then essentially federal legislation that then required the Army Corps of Engineers to come in. And they built this. You know, it wasn't just people piling up dirt. They really build a flood control system. 00;03;10;09 - 00;03;27;08 Stan Sollars So there was design. Yes. That was very intense. That's right. And based on engineering principles. Well, the nearby Mississinewa River, Buck Creek and other creeks and streams jump their banks. Are there flood control systems and levees for those waterways? 00;03;27;08 - 00;03;53;11 Chris Flook So I don't know as much about the Mississinewa. I don't I don't know of any flood control of the on the Mississinewa River in Delaware County, but the Mississinewa Reservoir, all those reservoirs up where all those rivers meet. Salomone and all that into the Wabash. Those were all like Prairie Creek here was built. As for water containment, for like, our water supply, those rivers are reservoirs up there were designed specifically for flood control. 00;03;53;13 - 00;04;04;09 Stan Sollars Through the eyes of in the story. And how do you see the city and county's personnel and resources as they worked through this? It was a disaster for many. 00;04;04;09 - 00;04;30;16 Chris Flook Folks, so it was a disaster for many folks. I thought. I thought our local governments did fantastic. The EMS did well, coordinated response. Churches came in. I know the Ball Brothers Foundation for many years has been really supporting, like these kinds of planning. And so like when, you know, no one wants a disaster, but when it does, everyone just kind of fell into place in a way that I thought was very well organized and protected lives and property. 00;04;30;16 - 00;04;43;21 Chris Flook I appreciated all the stuff that the city and county put out about the sewers, so it helped me to sort of figure out what to do with my basement and all that. I just for as terrible as things were, I really appreciate how our community responded. 00;04;43;22 - 00;04;54;25 Stan Sollars Well, your story in a microcosm here was pretty much what a lot of people were suffering. What what happened at your house? 00;04;54;27 - 00;05;17;29 Chris Flook We had two sump pumps. They were working pretty much aggressively. Everything was fine until the sewer backed up. And then we in Muncie, we have still have combined sewers. And so enough stormwater entered somewhere in the system into the sanitary sewer, and it caused a surcharge back up into and it just overpowered this, this backflow preventer and just dumped gallons and gallons of water. 00;05;17;29 - 00;05;22;27 Chris Flook But as soon as the rain stopped, the sewer cleared. And then and then our basement clears. We were very fortunate. 00;05;22;29 - 00;05;40;24 Stan Sollars Probably the story with several folks out there. Let's go back to that 1913 flood that I remember as a kid, the elders talking about how did it? How did it affect Muncie? Did it pretty much wash out the downtown or. 00;05;40;26 - 00;06;03;16 Chris Flook Not so much downtown? Similar kind of a pattern over a period of 72 hours. The best estimate is 6 to 8in of rain fell on the upper White River watershed. The Muncie Morning Star. It was happened over Easter Sunday. They suggested five inches within like four hours on Easter Sunday. So it was like an enormous amount, similar to what we experienced last week. 00;06;03;19 - 00;06;26;08 Chris Flook Levees, the levee that they had around the McKinley neighborhood was topped within a couple of hours. So McKinley flooded out part of widely flooded out West side Riverside City. You know, the little neighborhood that's close to here on campus. Huge parts of Yorktown Bridge is destroyed on the Mississinewa. And so, like, similar things happen. But none of those neighborhoods really flooded last week. 00;06;26;10 - 00;06;28;23 Chris Flook And it's it's because of the protection of the levees. 00;06;28;23 - 00;06;41;25 Stan Sollars And we're talking, of course, in 1913 about horse and wagon. How what accounts have you read about the manual labor that was required to clean up and rebuild? 00;06;41;26 - 00;07;00;08 Chris Flook Well, some places just didn't. There are places that were essentially abandoned in 1913. There were businesses that were abandoned in 1913. But just like you said, you were joking about the horse and buggy, but that's what people did. They went in on horse and buggy into the floodwaters to get people out. If you go to the McKinley neighborhood now, some of the old houses are all like up. 00;07;00;08 - 00;07;12;17 Chris Flook And so I don't know if that was originally built that way, but it's very clear that if you look closely, you see these people had experienced something really terrible a long time ago and then altered their buildings to then protect against the future. 00;07;12;19 - 00;07;45;10 Stan Sollars Very similar to driving through Rushville, a town that had multiple story buildings. And it's pretty much a one story city at this time. Because of the Palm Sunday tornadoes of 1965. We had a tornado buzz through here, but it didn't really buzz. More or less hummed. I think it pretty much caught a lot of people off guard. There were some difficulties with the Muncie Weather radio transmitter. 00;07;45;14 - 00;07;56;29 Stan Sollars The attention signal didn't go off at my house. It was more of my watch and my wife saying that there was a tornado coming. What did you observe yesterday in that? 00;07;57;02 - 00;08;16;11 Chris Flook I'm be honest. I'm terrified of storms now. I mean, like like I we had a somewhat normal thunderstorm last Thursday and it like freaked me out. I was like, the basement going to flood is a power going to go out. And the same thing yesterday. An alternative warning should be taken seriously. But sometimes they you know, it's a different part of the county or like do I really need to respond? 00;08;16;14 - 00;08;24;15 Chris Flook But I got like seven weather alerts in like five seconds. And then like the sky started darkening and like, oh my God, I need to get to the basement. 00;08;24;16 - 00;08;45;19 Stan Sollars Well that's right, we need to take all weather seriously, be it wind, rain or sleet, everything that the post office has to get through. Chris Flook, thank you very much for coming in and give us giving us historical angles on the flood of 26 and the floods of 1913 and 1937. 00;08;45;20 - 00;08;46;19 Chris Flook Sure. Anytime. 00;08;46;20 - 00;08;48;25 Stan Sollars Keep up the good work. Thank you, my friend.