By STAN MADDUX

Indiana Correspondent

LA CROSSE, Ind. — Farmers in flooded parts of northern Indiana had to relocate grain from the fall harvest to higher ground and build dikes to hold back high water from their storage bins.

Frank Gorski, whose family farm along Indiana 8 near La Crosse is less than a mile from the swollen Kankakee River, said he was able to empty most of his grain bins and move the soybeans into temporary storage on higher ground. The ground was too soft, though, for trucks to get in and haul away 10,000 bushels.

The two grain bins not able to be emptied had sandbags placed around them to try to keep the soybeans inside from getting wet. “We’ve moved irrigators to high spots in the fields and prayed a lot,” said Gorski.

With help from family members and friends, he said sandbags began getting filled Feb. 26 and stacked 3-5 feet high around his bins, where trucks could not get in to get the soybeans out because of the saturated ground.

Gorski said his problems stem not just from the recent heavy precipitation and snow melt, but the Yellow River being breached by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources to relieve flooding in Starke and Marshall counties. That sent water into an already high Kankakee River and the nearby Kankakee Fish and Wildlife area – then onto his property.

“When the Kankakee got full, it broke those banks and now it’s flooding us,” he said, adding last week that water levels on his property had been going up and down slightly for several days.

He was not sure how much longer the flood waters will pose a threat to some of his stored crop. The situation worsened a bit when another half-inch or more of rain fell March 1.

Many counties enacted frost laws to keep heavy trucks off local roads softened by the heavy rain and ice melting beneath the base of the pavement. LaPorte County Highway Department Superintendent Bob Young said permission was granted, though, to several farmers needing trucks to come in and haul grain to drier ground.

“We’re working with those guys that need that,” he said.

Dan Gumz, who grows corn and mint on his farm near La Crosse, said none of his grain was threatened, with all of his grain bins on higher ground close to nearby North Judson. His focus was holding back flood waters from his rental homes on his farm in southern LaPorte County and keeping Indiana 8 from completely washing out.

Gumz said two of his payloaders were helping place stone along the edge of the two-lane highway to keep it open. “We’ve seen flooding before and we’ve done a lot of maintenance work to help mitigate the damages, but I don’t know if I’ve seen it this bad,” he observed.

Young said several vehicles that drove past high water and road closure signs wound up having to be towed when their engines died trying to cross the road ankle-deep in water. Ironically, one was a truck delivering water to the Fish Lake area.