DID Releases 2008 Events Schedule

The Downtown Improvement District (DID) has released their events schedule for 2008. Visit www.downtownfortwayne.com for more information on the DID and DID events.

2008 DID Events-

Art Crawl
Friday, May 30th

Freimann Family Thursdays
Thursdays June 5-26th

Island Fest (Formerly Beach Blast)
Saturday, July 26th

Downtown Mardi Gras
Saturday, August 9th

Dowtown Fright Night
Saturday, October 25th

Holidayfest '08
Kicks off Wednesday, November 26th

Flood Repeat Possible

As Fort Wayne and surrounding areas continue to clean up from last week's floods, we could see another round of heavy rain and mixed precipitation moving in this weekend. While some areas are still flooded, and some low-lying fields and streets are still water (or ice) covered, not all flooding problems have come to an end. Current forcasts show rain moving in late Saturday night, and continuing throughout the day Sunday, possibly chaning to mixed precipitation or snow Sunday night with colder air moving in, with a couple inches of accumulation possible before the system moves out of our area. However, the snow isn't the primary concern, the rain is.

Current predictions make a point that heavy rain is highly likely Sunday, and possible into Sunday night, and before the system moves out we could see over one inch of rain, some areas could see up to two inches. One to two inches of rain, combined with snowmelt and a possible one to three inches of snow, flooding problems could make a comeback early next week- and flooding problems could reach severe levels before receeding, possibly exceeding levels we saw last week.
All in all, I'd say it's safe to say you might want to stay clear of parts of State Street next week, and parts of Clinton heading into downtown. Also, many low-lying areas will see plenty of flooding problems. We will continue to post lists of sandbagging locations next week, as well as continued coverage of flooding across the area.

The following is from the National Weather Service (NWS) of northeastern Indiana:

FLOOD WATCH
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NORTHERN INDIANA
453 PM EST FRI FEB 15 2008

...HEAVY RAINFALL POSSIBLE LATE SATURDAY NIGHT INTO SUNDAY....A POTENT LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM WILL DEVELOP OVER EASTERN TEXAS ANDRAPIDLY SHIFT NORTHEAST INTO THE GREAT LAKES REGION SUNDAY. THECOMBINATION OF STRONG LIFT ASSOCIATED WITH THIS SYSTEM...INCONJUNCTION WITH AMPLE GULF MOISTURE...WILL SUPPORT THEDEVELOPMENT OF WIDESPREAD RAINFALL. THE PRECIPITATION IS EXPECTEDTO BEGIN AS A PERIOD OF FREEZING RAIN LATE SATURDAYNIGHT AND TRANSITION TO ALL RAIN BY SUNDAY MORNING. RAINFALL ISEXPECTED TO BE HEAVY AT TIMES...ESPECIALLY WEST OF A PERU INDIANATO HILLSDALE MICHIGAN LINE. ANOTHER ROUND OF HEAVY RAINFALLIS POSSIBLE LATE SUNDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING AS A COLD FRONTPUSHES EAST ACROSS THE FORECAST AREA...SUPPORTING THE DEVELOPMENTOF A LINE OF HEAVY SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS. TOTAL RAINFALLAMOUNTS ARE EXPECTED TO RANGE BETWEEN THREE QUARTERS OF ANINCH...TO POSSIBLY TWO INCHES. FROZEN SOIL CONDITIONS...MELTINGSNOW PACK...AND RAINFALL WILL LIKELY LEAD TO CONTINUED OR RENEWEDFLOODING ALONG CREEKS...RIVERS...LAKES AND LOW LYING AREAS.

Flood Update

Believe it or not, the picture you see to the left isn't a riverfront boardwalk in Chicago, or the canal that goes through downtown Indianapolis. The picture to the left is Headwater's Park in downtown Fort Wayne- or at least whats still above water, that is.



Due to heavy rain and snowmelt over the past couple of days, rivers in northern Indiana and Ohio have been on the rise, and flood warnings cover nearly every county in northeastern Indiana. The St. Joseph in Fort Wayne was at 17.4 feet Thursday afternoon, while the flood stage is 12 feet. The river is forcasted to crest Friday morning, and go below flood stage by early Tuesday morning. However, that may not be the case, as more rain and snow will enter the area tomorrow afternoon, starting as rain, then changing over to snow. 1 to 2 inches of snow is possible Friday evening, and although the precipitation will be frozen- highs could reach above 40 degrees early next week, meaning more snowmelt.



To look at the brightside of the situation, just imagine how things would look right now if we had recieved the forcasted 12-14 inches of snow last week, instead of the 3.8 inches (Fort Wayne) we got. Things could be much worse than they are at the moment, and this flood could have been a moderate to major flood in severity, although the flood already is exceeding levels reached in recent years.



As for traffic, don't head down Clinton into downtown for a while. Water is flooding from one park to the other, meaning there's some water flooding over Clinton street, and traffic is down to one lane. Also, areas to the west of Clinton and north of downtown are a mess, and plenty of streets are closed down due to flooding. Headwater's Park, Lawtown Park, as well as the skate park are under water as of Thursday afternoon.

The image to the right is a shot looking at Clinton Street from the upper level of Headwater's Park. While it's only a matter of inches over Clinton, it is plenty enough to slow traffic and reduce the street to one lane. Clinton isn't nearly as bad as some other streets in the area, however, as plenty of areas to the north and west of Headwater's Park are under water.

In addition to the area to the northwest, plenty of areas along the river to the southwest of Headwater's Park, particularly areas on Superior street, are flooding through as well. While this isn't a major flood for Fort Wayne, it is creating plenty of problems for the area, and probably has worked it's way from a minor flood to a moderate flood.

Sandbagging is going on at plenty of locations around the city, the following list is from the City of Fort Wayne's website:

Portage Middle School – 3521 Taylor Street
Broadview Florist – 5409 Winchester Road
Taylor University – 1025 W. Rudisill Blvd. (parking lot on the south side of Rudisill)
Southwest Conservation Club – 5701 Bluffton Road

Other sources have said that sandbagging is going on at various other locations, including Fellowship Missionary Church at 2536 Tillman Road, however I can't confirm that at this time. An update from the National Weather Service (NWS) suggests many rivers may crest as late as Saturday afternoon, or as early as Friday morning. With more precipitation on the way, we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Shorts: Week of 2/4/08

News shorts for the week of February 4, 2008:

-The DID plans to host a downtown beach party once again this summer, calling it "island-fest" for now. Visit www.downtownfortwayne.com for more information on the DID and upcoming DID events.

-As a possible solution to the controversary over placing a new telecommunications tower downtown, two "pyramids" could go up in/near Headwaters park, disguised with decorations, each standing about 100 feet tall, and costing about $500,000 each.

-Excitement over Harrison Square is building, Mayor Henry has recieved phone calls from developers reguarding building condominiums near the complex in addition to those already being built.

-DFWB (Downtown Fort Wayne Baseball) uncovered information reguarding a recent land purchase by National Oil & Gas Co. near the Harrison Square site. For more information visit DFWB, or view the original post.

-A new downtown restuarant is set to open soon, called "Bourbon Street Hideaway", in the basement of Columbia Street West. For more information, click here, or view DFWB's "sneak peak".

Next up on Downtown DIG

Coming up in the next edition of Downtown DIG, we'll take a walk over to HomeGrown Bead and Candle Shoppe on Wayne Street to talk with owner Corene Painter, and feature an interview with the DID's newest employee.

Oh, and if you want a little sneak peak of some other stories that we might pack in too, go to youtube.com/downtowndig and watch the "WLDE Tour". Don't worry, we won't put the whole 7 minutes in our next edition.

Winter Storm Coverage Part Three

Well, as you may have noticed, we didn't pick up that foot of snow like what was forcasted. But the four or five inches we did get was enough to create some messy roads and school closings. Overall, it was just your typical January snowstorm for Fort Wayne. Other areas around the state, however, picked up quite a bit more than us, some places seeing up to 10+ inches.

There was an interesting sight downtown last night, however- a snow tornado on Calhoun. The video below was shot around midnight or so looking north on Calhoun from Washington, by John and Nick Arnett.





So while we didn't get a foot of snow, it was nice to have a little break from the cold rainy weather, and see a blanket of white over the city. Oh, and we definitely got our answer to the question "Will the snow shut down downtown?". Well, considering thats where I am at the moment, and the only problem I had getting here was slipping on a little patch of slush, I think its pretty safe to say that it didn't. Now had we gotten the 12-15 inches forcasted, that may have been a different story.