INDIANAPOLIS — High winds and rain caused by Hurricane Helene on Friday left storm damage across Central Indiana.
Downed trees, flooding and major power outages were reported as a result of the weather conditions.
According to AES, approximately 97,000 customers were left without power. Over half of those customers were restored by Saturday morning.
Crews are now working on getting a remaining 43,000 customers restored.
Downed trees was a major concern of The Department of Public on Saturday.
In the Fountain Square neighborhood, trees lie on top of cars and on front porches.
"I thought it was gonna be completely totaled," said one neighbor, who's car was damaged by a tree "So you know, it could be worse."
The same issue of downed trees made a major dent in one Zionsville home.
"Got home from Lowes and was changing the furnace filter when I heard it, and I ran outside, and there it was," Emily Hughie said.
The tree that used to be beside Emily’s home on Russell Lake West is now on top of it.
"Just the winds had been kicking up pretty strongly. And next thing we know, we heard this huge crashing sound. And my son came running in and said, there's a tree on the house and the gutters have been torn off, and there's no penetrating damage that we can see so far," Emily said. "So luckily, everything inside is dry, but they're gonna come by and assess everything tomorrow and hopefully remove the tree."
Emily says neighbors are coming together to pick up the pieces.
On the city's north side, neighbors are dealing with another issue caused by storms — major flooding.
"Nasty, nasty, nasty water, sewage, I guess has been going since 10:30 last night probably," Larry Wright said.
Wright, who lives near 71st and Ralston, said he could see and smell the water while taking his brother to work.
The neighbors believe the water is coming from the sewers, based on the terrible smell.
Citizens Energy Group owns and maintains the city's wastewater sewer, as well as the city’s combined wastewater-stormwater sewer.
In a statement to WRTV, Citizens said the flooding was caused by lost power at a nearby lift station.
I understand from our team that this issue is the result of lost power at a nearby lift station. Under normal conditions, lift stations are assets which pump (or “lift”) sewage to higher elevations within the sewer system so it can continue the journey by gravity toward a treatment plant. The nearby lift station lost power earlier today, compromising its operations. Citizens crews have been preparing for and monitoring storm-related issues within our systems throughout this week as bad weather has moved into Indianapolis, and a team has been working at this location since the power loss. The electricity to the nearby lift station was restored about an hour ago, allowing operations to continue as the system resets. When the lift station is fully operational, our crews will assist with clean-up of the overflow area.
Citizens said the power has been restored at the lift station. When it's fully operational, crews will assist with clean-up in the area.
As a result of the widespread storm damage, Hoosiers are being warned of possible storm clean-up scams. AG Todd Rokita says to be wary of scammers claiming to help clean-up, repair or rebuild for money.
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