Between 11 and 13 August, storms parked over east-central Indiana and did not move. The National Weather Service office in Indianapolis logged a preliminary maximum of 11.50 inches of rain a few miles east-north-east of New Lisbon, in Henry County, with totals above ten inches at New Castle, Modoc, Springport and Summitville. Water that falls on saturated farmland has nowhere to go but the nearest channel, and the nearest channel here was the White River.
At the Anderson gauge in Madison County, minor flooding begins at 10 feet and major flooding at 19. On Friday the river crested at 24.93 feet — well above the 23.6-foot mark set on 25 March 1913, the flood that still anchors Indiana’s collective memory of high water. Seven deaths have now been linked to the storms and the flooding, among them a four-year-old boy killed when wind brought a rotted tree down onto a house in Jennings County, and an eighteen-year-old who entered the Mississinewa River on Wednesday and was found on Saturday. Roughly 400 residents left low-lying parts of northern Indianapolis on their own; more than 350 evacuated in Delaware County.
Federal records date the emergency declaration to 15 August, naming 53 Indiana counties and activating the Public Assistance programme. That distinction matters. An emergency declaration pays for the immediate work — debris, sandbags, overtime, shelters — but it is a narrower instrument than the major-disaster declaration that carries Individual Assistance to households. Indiana has been here recently: after the storms of spring 2025, the state received public assistance across 24 counties and was refused individual assistance in July of that year. Households whose basements are full of river water will be watching which category arrives next. “Our state response is fully mobilized, resources are moving where they’re needed, and we will continue working around the clock to support every impacted community,” Governor Mike Braun said in a statement.
A record that survives 113 years acquires a quiet authority; engineers design to it, insurers price to it, and towns build up to its edge. When it falls, the arithmetic behind a great many local decisions has to be reopened. Indiana’s rivers are still falling this morning, slowly, and the counting is not finished.