Vintage tractor becomes chariot for flood victims

Neighbors just keep helping in small Indiana town

By Mark Bennett

PRAIRIETON, Ind. — In bare feet, with her pant legs rolled up, Joan Pohlman pulled cornstalks from the water surrounding the grocery store she and her husband run.



Their family spent last winter remodeling the place, Joan & Yogi’s. “Day and night,” as her father-in-law, Ted Pohlman, put it. “We’d be up here till 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning.”



On Saturday, pumps churned to keep the water in the store’s basement from rising higher than a foot and a half. Neighbors from around the store on Indiana 63 just north of Prairieton cleared cornstalks and debris from the flooding waters pouring through the community from nearby Honey Creek and streams leading to the Wabash River.



“If it hadn’t been for all of the neighbors helping, we’d have been under water,” Ted said, standing in a current of water rushing over the road in front of the store.



At its entrance, Joan pushed her hair behind her ears and scanned the mud-covered parking lot for more debris.



“It’s a small town,” she said. “This isn’t like Wal-Mart or Kmart. Everybody wants to help you.”



As she spoke, Larry Sample and his son Jason loaded another dozen people on the haywagon they were pulling with a tractor.

“It’s about a ’57, I think. Allis-Chalmers WD-45,” Larry said. “Looks a little rough, but it’ll do the job.”



To about 50 stranded people, it looked like a golden chariot. Floodwaters penned them in, flowing over the highway at the Honey Creek bridge to the north and building up around the ravines to the south. Some were trying to get out of swamped homes in the Oak Ridge and Prairie Park subdivisions. Others had driven to the store area, then gotten trapped.



Larry and Jason started the morning prepared to give horse carriage rides at a wedding in Terre Haute and at the Merom Chatacqua. Those plans changed after more than 6 inches of rain hit already rain-soaked Prairieton.



The Sampleses made their first rescue with their horse buggy, giving a neighbor a ride out just before the berm of the highway washed out in front of his parked pickup truck. Soon, Larry and Jason switched to the tractor and haywagon, ferrying people from the store area to a dry section of Indiana 63. From there, another Prairieton neighbor, Jack Roberts, used his pickup to drive folks through a series of backroads to Stuckey’s at U.S. 41, where their families met them.



Larry’s initial mission was “to get some milk and see if anybody needed help.” The milk had to wait.



“My concern was, I kept watching the water to see if we were going to lose the road,” Larry said. “But people needed help, so I kept going.”



With every load on the haywagon, people shared stories of their predicaments and got reacquainted with familiar faces. Most had waved to each other, or waited in line together at Joan & Yogi’s or shared a table at a Prairieton Volunteer Fire Department fish dinner. Now, they were trying to save their homes.



Prairieton Fire Chief Monte Hunt helped coordinate six water rescue units from other communities around the Wabash Valley and Indiana. They’d evacuated residents from nearly 30 Prairieton households by 7 o’clock Saturday, using boats and hovercraft, with at least 20 more homes still waiting to evacuate.



While those missions went on, Larry and Jason kept their haywagon runs going. Each time, Larry told Monte, “I’ve got one more to go.”



He just kept going.



Kyle Pettijohn and Billy Roberts of the Sugar Creek Tactical 41 unit described the rescue of people trying to save some horses. “They got in some swift water, and got pushed up against some trees,” Pettijohn said.



The town saw its most tense moments in years, decades or, perhaps, ever. At nightfall, the Prairieton fire and rescue crews, assisted by a team from Fishers, Ind., saved two people who’d foolishly driven into a flood-covered back road and got stuck.



Seconds before the rescuers used ropes to walk out and pull them out, one of the crewmen said, “It’s been a long day.” But they kept going.



On Prairieton’s south side, resident Tom Moore and his wife drove south of the town to assess the flooding. A woman came out to the road and told him their basement was flooded, and they were walking about 100 yards at a time to bring out belongings. “So I went down and got my boat, and took it to them,” Moore said, “and they were tickled to death.”



Like Joan Pohlman said, “It’s a small town.”



She peered out at the store, all of the neighbors with water-soaked clothes, the highway and the sun setting over the disarray. In a determined voice, she said, “The whole community has been good to us, and supported us to help keep us going. They’ll come in and have breakfast, or buy gas or milk, because they want us.”



Then Larry and Jason loaded up the wagon again and took one more trip toward safety.



Mark Bennett writes for The Tribune Star in Terre Haute, Ind. Contact him at mark.bennett@tribstar.com.

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