Indiana Gov. Mike Braun expects to declare statewide emergency after storms cause widespread wind damage and flooding

Indiana Gov. Mike Braun on Wednesday said he expects to declare a statewide emergency following severe storms that caused widespread wind damage in northwest Indiana and significant flooding in central parts of the state.

Braun said multiple state agencies, including the Indiana Department of Homeland Security, Indiana National Guard, and Indiana Department of Natural Resources, have been helping local governments with the response to the storms.

"A lot of resources from the state will be here," Braun said at a press conference on Wednesday in Hammond. "The state's going to be fully involved along the way. With everything I've seen so far, it's going to be probably a statewide emergency declaration, because this thing started up here [in northwest Indiana], and it moved all the way down across the state to the southeast."

Braun said it could take up to a week to evaluate the extent of the damage statewide before seeking federal assistance with the cost of recovery from the storms.

The city of Gary has declared a local disaster emergency due to significant wind damage, flooding, and power outages.

Braun said, while there was lots of wind damage in Northwest Indiana on Tuesday, with winds of up to 99 mph in Gary, some parts of central Indiana got as much as 10 inches of rain.

"Roads were being washed out. There were a lot of water rescues. So this was quite a storm that moved across our state," he said.

Braun said nearly a third of the counties in Indiana have reported damage from straight-line winds on Tuesday.

"This is just one event that is much broader. When you have straight-line winds as opposed to tornadoes, it's going to cover a lot more territory," he said.

Gary Mayor Eddie Melton said the city was hit "extremely hard" by Tuesday's storms, with lots of downed trees and power lines.

Melton said the YWCA in Gary will serve as an overnight shelter for families who have been forced out of their homes due to storm damage.

Hammond Mayor Tom McDermott said that city also has widespread damage, with approximately two-thirds of Hammond still without power as of Wednesday afternoon.

McDermott said it could take through the weekend to restore power due to the extent of the damage.

NIPSCO, the utility serving northwest Indiana, reported 269,726 outages as of 1:25 p.m., out of approximately 500,000 customers.

Indiana Department of Homeland Security Executive Director Jonathan Whitham praised local governments across the state for their response to the storms.

"At this point, the local response agencies have done a tremendous job stabilizing the situation and making sure that the information is flowing into the state, and they're receiving what they need from state agencies," he said.

Whitham said there has been one confirmed storm-related death so far from Tuesday's storms, a 4-year-old child who was killed when a tree fell on their home in Jennings County in southeastern Indiana, about 70 miles southeast of Indianapolis.

Officials were also looking into two other deaths on Tuesday that might be storm-related, one in Lake County and one in Porter County.

In Portage, Indiana, one person was killed in a house explosion in Portage, Indiana, during a severe weather outbreak on Tuesday afternoon. It was not immediately clear if the explosion was caused in part by the storms, but the area was hit hard with storm damage during Tuesday's storms. Neighbors say they were out here helping with the downed trees and debris when they heard and felt the explosion.  

Portage and Crown Point schools canceled classes on Wednesday due to power outages and families dealing with storm damage.