Rocky Ripple residents continue fight against flood wall
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Some Rocky Ripple residents say their entire neighborhood could be wiped out if the city continues to build a flood wall.
The city is building the flood wall at the southernmost part of the Rocky Ripple neighborhood on the Central Canal. But residents say if a flood were to happen, that wall would leave them under water.
“We’ve been here for 40 years, and this is our neighborhood,” said Les Zwirn, who is opposed to the wall. “With our handful of assets — the canal, Holcomb Gardens, the towpath — and they’re just being destroyed for no reason,” Zwirn continued.
Deforestation has already begun to make way for the wall.
“This is an urban woods, and I think these spaces in a city are very precious spaces,” said Carolyn Webster, who lives along the towpath.
The city is building a flood wall along Westfield Boulevard, they say, to control flooding.
But many of the 625 residents in Rocky Ripple say they’ll actually be flooded out.
“It puts a whole community of people at high risk for being flooded out of their homes,” said Webster.
“It throws Rocky Ripple under the bridge so to speak. They won’t be protected for x number of years,” said Zwirn.
Zwirn doesn’t live in the floodplain; he’s part of the group Build the Wall for All. They’ve been fighting for decades.
They say if the wall were to be built along the White River, everyone would be protected.
A similar flood wall has already been built there.
“It’s either pay the flood insurance, and your area keeps getting flooded, or you have to take down some trees and improve the area,” said L.B. Lambert, who lives just east of the river near Kessler Boulevard. “It’s just something that has to happen,” Lambert said.
The Hogsett administration is drafting a plan to build a second wall along the White River in a few years.
The residents, though, say they might as well build that wall now. They say it would save money and protect everyone south of the river.