Kosciusko County continues cleanup after storms,preparing for next round
"We had reports of about 18 trees across the road. [And] then the rain came. We had reports of about six to seven inches," says Scott Tilden, the Kosciusko County Highways Department Superintendent.
High winds and rain tore up the county.
"We had 17 roads we had to close off for high water," he adds.
Bruner Road in Warsaw literally floated away. Heavy rains left a deep hole in the middle of the road.
Crews worked tirelessly all night to fix it.
"We worked through the night, Friday night, and was able to reopen Bruner Road on Saturday morning around 5 a.m.," explains Tilden.
72 hours later, it's a different scene.
They continued to work on Monday, trying to reinforce Bruner road so that it doesn't happen again during the next round of storms.
Those 17 roads are now dry and reopened. Tilden says they're used to this.
"We're always worried about storms. That's kind of our livelihood," says Tilden. "But we'll deal with whatever we get."
Warsaw residents are determined to not let the continuous barrage of storms rain on their fun.
Monday marked the opening day of the Kosciusko County Fair, an event that's greeted enthusiastically.
But now, they're praying for fair weather at the fair.
"We're hoping we can survive the storm," says Fair Board President, Randy Shepherd.
The storms delayed and slowed down the fair preparations.
"We had a full foot of water in our parking lot as of noon on Saturday," he adds. "[And now] we're setting up the rodeo and it's a little bit slcik on our track. The guys are having a bit of trouble setting everything up."
But the fair is determined to still bring the fun and games: rain or shine.
"As long as we don't have wind or lightening, most of the events will go on," says Shepherd.
But if it does happen? They have it covered. Literally.
"We'll get everyone into shelters or off of the fair grounds, and close things down if it gets to be too hazardous to be on the grounds," he adds.