2008 flood had lasting impact on Johnson County

Dec 23, 2023

A strong storm less than a week after the June 7, 2008, flood caused more flooding and frayed nerves in Franklin. The flood prompted government officials to find new solutions to control flooding, and led to strict guidelines for new construction dealing with runoff.

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When floodwaters tore through Franklin and other communities on June 7, 2008, it fundamentally changed Johnson County.

Homes and buildings were torn down, too damaged to remain standing. Floodplains along waterways were cleared. An urban forest took the place of a neighborhood.

But while the physical changes of the natural disaster are evident, the flood also shifted the way the community approaches people in crisis.

"The flood prepared a road map as United Way responded to other disasters," said Nancy Lohr Plake, executive director of the United Way of Johnson County.

Fifteen years after the disastrous flood, the evidence of its impact are impossible to miss. Government offices, including the county's Oren Wright building, were torn down after sustaining too much damage to recover.

The most immediate and noticeable change was the destruction of 107 homes across the county, made possible with $8.5 million in federal funds to purchase the damaged structures and clear the properties.

Neighborhoods from the Center Grove area to Franklin to Edinburgh were irreversibly changed, if they didn't disappear entirely.

But from the devastation, communities have healed in unique ways.

"Probably the biggest thing that came out of the flood was, people realized this was a real problem. We needed to figure out how to fix this real problem. And the best way to stop it out was to buy out where the areas that continuously flood are, and make that a quality-of-life space, and that's what we’ve done," said Franklin Mayor Steve Barnett.

Volunteers plant a tree in the Franklin Urban Forest south of South Street in 2013. The urban forest was planted in the area where dozens of homes were purchased by the government and torn down following damage during the 2008 flood.

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Vehicles sit in floodwater near King and Breckenridge streets in Franklin following the floods in 2008. The natural disaster left Franklin and communities throughout Johnson County changed, not only physically after homes and buildings had to be torn down, but in the ways officials react to emergencies.

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Young's Creek Park in Franklin was made by the city after the 2008 flood, and subsequent floods, forced officials to create a space that could absorb floodwaters better than existing businesses located next to the creek.

RYAN TRARES | DAILY JOURNAL

Volunteers at the Interchurch Food Pantry in Franklin put together bags of cleaning supplies and food for flood victims in 2008. Lessons learned during the disaster helped lay the foundation for emergency responses the agency still uses today.

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The Franklin urban forest was planted in the area where dozens of homes were purchased by the government and torn down following damage during the 2008 flood.

RYAN TRARES | DAILY JOURNAL

Donated furniture, household items and cleaning goods fill the Johnson County Donation Center on Westview Drive in Franklin after the floods in 2008. The United Way of Johnson County spearheaded the donation center, and lessons learned during the disaster helped lay the foundation for emergency responses the agency still uses today.

DAILY JOURNAL FILE PHOTO

A strong storm less than a week after the June 7, 2008, flood caused more flooding and frayed nerves in Franklin. The flood prompted government officials to find new solutions to control flooding, and led to strict guidelines for new construction dealing with runoff.

DAILY JOURNAL FILE PHOTO

In Franklin, a swath of land along South Street has been reborn as a woodland. The urban forest, first planted in 2012, is growing up, providing a habitat for birds and other wildlife in the middle of the city center.

Just on the other side of Young's Creek from the forest, another public project has been born from the flood. Young's Creek Park, with its playground, pickleball courts, splash pad and DriveHubler.com Amphitheater, has become the epicenter of community events in the city.

The 2008 flood, along with other damaging flood events in the following years, convinced government officials to purchase the land from existing businesses and use it in a way where flooding could be mitigated.

"Quality of life was affected," Barnett said. "Business owners there said, we have to do something — we don't want this to happen again. So that's when we started the amphitheater process."

Barnett has seen the progress the city has made since the disaster. The lifelong Franklin resident joined the city council through a caucus just a month after the disaster —inspired in part by the damage the flood had caused.

"The reason I got on the council was because my background was in underground utilities and construction work, working with storm sewers," Barnett said. "I thought I could help there."

Working with other government officials, first on the council and then as mayor, Barnett has seen the emphasis placed on fixing drainage and mitigating flooding. A new drainage system was installed under Main Street to lessen the impact on the downtown area.

Strict rules have been enforced requiring holding ponds and other features for new construction projects in the city.

"People got serious about how we slow this down. We’re never going to stop it completely, but we’ve done a good job of slowing the flooding," Barnett said.

While projects such as the urban forest and Young's Creek Park well-known, other remnants of the flood are less obvious, if not just as important. Two holiday-time traditions were born out of the disaster.

The annual Johnson County Thanksgiving Banquet has provided a hot meal and companionship each Thanksgiving Day since 2008. The event was inspired by a desire to heal the community after the flood, organizers said.

Grace United Methodist Church in Franklin was also inspired to create its Christmas Day banquet in the aftermath of the flood and ongoing economic recession.

The United Way of Johnson County was at the center of recovery efforts after the flood. The organization provided direct assistance for rent, utilities and medication. A donation center allowed victims to get clothing, furniture, appliances and other items lost in the flood.

The United Way was instrumental in creating Johnson County Community Organizations Active in Disasters, which provided long-term assistance with needs such as construction and case management for those impacted by the floods.

The following year, as recession led to large-scale unemployment, the United Way founded Economic Assistance Plan — Navigating Job Loss. People who had lost their jobs would apply for immediate assistance on rent or other bills, while also receiving case management to re-enter the workforce. The program is still in existence, operated by Gateway Services, Plake said.

That program served as a template in 2020, when the pandemic again lost large swaths of the community without work or ways to pay their bills.

"We really took what we learned from the flood and the turn down in the economy in 2008-2009, and combined all our knowledge of those two adversities and to our best of our knowledge created a program that would keep people housed while addressing the needs of those affected by the pandemic," Plake said.

Like the United Way, the Interchurch Food Pantry has remained a bulwark against disaster, building on the experience in 2008 to better serve the community.

The Interchurch Food Pantry had been a county institution since the early 1980s, when it formed in the basement of First Baptist Church in Franklin. At the time of the flood, it was open for a few hours each weekday, serving about 600 families every week.

But after the flood, the institution became a hub for relief efforts for local residents. The pantry was the volunteer center and supply depot, while continuing to feed the hungry. Hours were expanded to six days a week, and the pantry's small location on Overstreet Street was open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Stepping up to meet the need has continued to be a core value of the food pantry, said Carol Phipps, executive director of the Interchurch Food Pantry.

"From that experience, our pantry board and leadership recognized the need for the pantry to rise up to community challenges, such as this, and be part of the recovery process," she said.

Even 15 years later, people continue to seek out help at the pantry. They serve between 140 and 150 households Monday through Friday, in addition to being open two Saturdays each month. And as new challenges and disasters have struck the county, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, pantry leaders found a way to keep serving, Phipps said.

When a national emergency was declared in March 2020 due to the pandemic, the organization was prepared to pivot.

"Over that weekend, we re-configured our parking lot and shopping area, opening as usual on Monday morning with the new drive-through approach. We were uncertain what to expect that morning but had faith that we would make it work somehow," Phipps said.