Rivers rising in Indiana’s catastrophic flood zone as new storms threaten Midwest
By Meteorologists Dakota Smith, Briana Waxman, Chris Dolce, and CNN’s Kate S. Petersen
(CNN) — More heavy rain is headed to flood-ravaged Indiana, where water rescues and evacuations are still underway following historic rainfall this week.
Parts of the state experienced a 1-in-1,000 year rainfall event on Wednesday that sent floodwater rushing into homes and left roads impassable. Now, major flooding is happening along rivers across the eastern part of the state. Indiana Gov. Mike Braun has declared a statewide disaster emergency and mobilized the Indiana National Guard.
⛈️☔️In one of the impacted areas? Track the storms, find out your local risk and get more detailed timing from meteorologists in the CNN Weather app⛈️☔️
The catastrophic flooding began one day after a deadly derecho — a rare, unusually long-lasting windstorm — tore through the Midwest. The region will not get a meaningful break from the storms until this weekend.
Here’s the latest:
- More flooding to come: More than 17 million people from Iowa to West Virginia are in flood watches for additional bouts of rain that are expected to sweep through Thursday and Friday. Saturated ground and swollen rivers will make it easier for even modest rainfall to cause new problems.
- Rivers still rising: At least three rivers have hit major flood stage in eastern Indiana. One of those is the White River in Anderson, Indiana, where a record crest over 24 feet is forecast for Thursday night — the highest in more than 100 years. A level that high would likely bring
- Flash flood emergencies: Parts of seven counties in eastern Indiana were under the highest level of flood warning Wednesday. Parts of the region have seen multiple months’ worth — 6 to nearly 12 inches — of rain so far this week.
- Widespread outages persist: More than 250,000 homes and businesses are without power in Indiana as of Thursday evening, according to PowerOutage.us. Just under 400,000 customers remain in the dark across the Midwest and Ohio Valley for the second consecutive day. A utility serving northern Indiana experienced its most widespread outage ever due to this week’s storms and estimates power won’t be fully restored for more than a week.
‘Catastrophic’ flooding grips Indiana
In Muncie, about an hour northeast of Indianapolis, officials are working to evacuate neighborhoods along the White River, which rose more than 3 and a half feet above major flood stage late Thursday morning.
Evacuations have not been ordered, but hundreds of people are in the impacted area and most are leaving, the city’s Fire Chief Dan Burford told CNN Thursday. Rescues are ongoing in Muncie and other parts of Delaware County, Burford said, including many drivers stranded in floodwater.
“I’ve been with the department for 29 years, and I’ve never seen flooding like this,” Burford said.
Water is deep enough in the streets that rescuers are using motorized boats. In some residential areas, Burford estimates floodwater is 9 feet deep. More than half of the homes in one 30-square-block area of Muncie had likely flooded to some extent, he added. The local utility has cut power to affected areas for safety.
The city said its infrastructure has “experienced failures,” with the flooding leaving one sewer facility inoperable and another running at maximum capacity. The last storm of this magnitude was in 1913, when the city decided to construct a levee system. About 4 billion gallons of rain has fallen on the city in the last 24 hours – roughly eight times what the drainage systems can handle well, the city said.
Elsewhere in Delaware County, authorities have been searching for a teenager missing after jumping into a river Wednesday night, CNN affiliate WTHR reported.
Sheriff’s deputies responded to a report that four teens had jumped from a bridge into the water at around 8:30 p.m. ET. Three were found and rescued, according to the sheriff’s office. Authorities resumed search operations Thursday morning but have had to pause again until conditions improve, according to WTHR.
“Our focus remains on locating the missing individual while ensuring the safety of the first responders involved in the search,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement to WTHR. CNN has reached out to the sheriff for more information.
In nearby Anderson, Indiana, the mayor declared a local disaster emergency Thursday.
To the south in hard-hit western Wayne County, Indiana, crews have rescued people from rooftops, the tops of vehicles and places surrounded by floodwater, according to the county emergency management agency.
More than 30 people were rescued or evacuated by Wednesday afternoon, with 12 more water rescues reported overnight Thursday, the agency said. Most of these were by boat in Cambridge City, a town about an hour east of Indianapolis, Wayne County Emergency Management Agency spokesperson Todd Harmeson told CNN Thursday.
Cambridge City reported “catastrophic” flooding by late Wednesday morning. Video obtained by CNN shows floodwater covering large sections of the town, with water levels well past many houses’ windows and cars almost entirely submerged. Most roads there were impassable, Harmeson said.
The town also warned residents in a social media post to be prepared to potentially lose utilities for “a number of days” and is currently under a boil-water advisory. The county has shut off electricity and gas service in some flooded areas as a safety measure and asked residents to conserve water.
Flooding also damaged the westbound lanes of Interstate 70 in Wayne County. The Indiana Department of Transportation estimates the interstate will reopen by Friday.
In nearby New Castle, Indiana, crews evacuated over 120 people from an apartment complex using boats and humvees on Wednesday, according to the city fire department.
New Castle received more than 11 inches of rain in 32 hours – a 1-in-1000-year rainfall rate. This only has a 0.1% chance of happening in given year, under normal circumstances. But extreme rainfall is becoming more common as the atmosphere warms.
Deadly storms hit Midwest on Tuesday
Wednesday’s storms came a day after a deadly line of severe weather swept through Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.
A 4-year-old boy died in southeastern Indiana on Tuesday after a tree fell on a house in Geneva Township, according to Cody Low, chief deputy for the Jennings County sheriff’s department.
One person was found dead Tuesday in Portage, Indiana, from an apparent explosion and house fire after the derecho moved through the area. The cause remains under investigation, but police suspect trees knocked down by the storm may have damaged natural gas lines.
Punishing week of storms continues
Iowa and Illinois, flood-ravaged Indiana and parts of the Appalachians are at risk for more flooding rain on Thursday on Friday.
A complex of ongoing storms in Illinois and southern Wisconsin could spread as far east as Indiana through Thursday afternoon.
These storms will eventually run out of steam, but new ones in their wake will likely form by late Thursday in Iowa and Illinois. Those storms could build eastward across parts of Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia through the overnight hours into Friday morning.
A Level 3 of 4 risk of flooding rainfall has been issued in parts of Indiana, southwest Ohio and north-central Kentucky through early Friday. Another 1 to 3 inches of rain is likely across this already water-logged area, but much higher totals up to 6 inches in spots are possible if storms stall out over the same areas for too long.
Storms could also stall out elsewhere in the Midwest and cause significant flooding late Thursday into Friday; Iowa, northern Illinois and Ohio have the greatest potential for that.
The heavy rain threat could finally ease by Friday afternoon in the hard-hit Ohio Valley, but the Upper Mississippi Valley and parts of the Great Lakes could see more downpours through Saturday.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
CNN’s Avni Trivedi and Sarah Dewberry contributed to this report.
