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July 7, 2008

Month after flooding, Toad Hop residents battle to save their village

By Arthur E. Foulkes

Recovery efforts are moving forward in the small village of Toad Hop after last month’s flash flooding.

Collapsed homes and piles of debris remain all around the town, which was home to around 140 people before the June 7 flood.

Of the scores of Toad Hop families left homeless by the flooding, only a handful have been able to return to permanent homes, Toad Hop residents said Monday; however, many more hope to return, they said.

“This is home. It’s been home for 30 years,” said Ricky Johnson, who currently lives in a tent where his home used to be on Hovey Place in Toad Hop. Like several others, Johnson is working to clean up the mess left by flooding in the village, which is on the western edge of West Terre Haute, south of U.S. 40.

To help assess the housing needs for the people of Toad Hop, the not-for-profit Community Action Program of Western Indiana will be at the West Vigo Community Center in West Terre Haute from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday. The Community Center is at 127 W. Johnson Ave.

“What we’re doing is gathering data of current housing needs and status for those folks down there,” said Mike Booe, economic development director of the Community Action Program of Western Indiana. “We’re just evaluating their needs,” he said.

Last week, representatives of the Community Action Program met with more than a dozen residents in Toad Hop, Booe said.

No appointment is needed to meet with Community Action Program representatives Wednesday, Booe said.

As of Monday, only three or four families had returned to their homes in Toad Hop, said Tim Browning, a Toad Hop resident whose home was badly damaged by the flooding. Browning is currently living in a camper while cleanup and rebuilding efforts are under way, he said.

“If we get in [our home] by winter, we’ll be lucky,” Browning said.

Floodwaters damaged or destroyed nearly every home in Toad Hop, residents said. Photographs from June 7 showed water in some places reaching the tops of cars or higher. “That water was deep,” Johnson said.

All around Toad Hop, people worked Monday to remove what was left of damaged homes. This recovery effort has been under way since the water receded, residents said.

“I’ve been here every day since it happened,” said Richard Elkins, who has family in Toad Hop. Residents of the small village have all helped each other, Johnson noted.

“We’re all like family,” Johnson said. “You help one another when something like this happens.” Area businesses such as McCalister Bros., Dick McCalister and Sons and Howell’s Septic Service have loaned equipment or provided food and water, residents said.

More than half the people who lost their homes in the flooding plan to return to Toad Hop, Johnson and Browning said.

“We want to talk to as many people from that area as we can,” Booe said of Wednesday’s meeting with Toad Hop residents at the West Vigo Community Center. The effort is designed to assess current and future housing needs, he said. “We’re just trying to help out.”

Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.

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