Flooding forces Shelby Co family from home

SHELBY COUNTY, Ind. (WISH) - Flooding in Shelby County forced at least two families from their homes.

One family was rescued from their home in the 4000 block of West County Road 100 North by a water rescue team Monday morning.

Another couple, Jason Pherson and Jennifer Bower, was forced from their home late Saturday night as waters rose nearly a foot inside.

The couple lives in Fairland, near W 1100 N. They’ve lived there a little over a year, and they say they knew Sweet Creek came up toward their home when it rained a lot, but they never knew it would get this bad.

“To have that much water in your house, and there was nothing we could do about it,” said Bower, recalling the night. “We couldn’t stop it, it just took over everything… We carried the cats out one by one, they were scared to death. That’s where we stayed that night, and we watched the water keep rising. It just took the whole house in ten minutes. We had water everywhere. There was no stopping it.”

A devastating reality for this couple, who has had a rough year, as it is.

They say they both lost their jobs and are going back to school.

The American Red Cross put them up in a hotel Sunday night. Monday evening, they stayed again in their RV in the front yard.

Fans now run inside their home; a company pumped the water out Monday evening.

“Now we just try to get our lives back to normal as much as possible,” said Pherson.

Pherson said they shared their story in the hopes they may find a solution for the area, where flooding is common.

24-Hour News 8 spoke with a county commissioner, who said they’ve looked into this area for years.

He said they’ve done studies on it; the latest recommendation was to build a brim along the creek, and have pumps installed to pump the water out.

He said they determined it would be too expensive to do that, because residents would have to pay for it over a period of time.