Midwest Braces for Heavy Flooding as Power Outages Pass Half a Million
Flash flood warnings have been issued across several Midwestern states following severe storms and evacuations in Indiana.
3 reports on this incident · first at Aug 13, 2026, 9:14 a.m. ET
Earlier reports
Aug 15, 2026, 9:35 p.m. ET
National Weather Service Issues Flash Flood Warnings Across Midwest
The National Weather Service has raised the alert level by issuing flash flood and flood warnings beginning August 13, 2026, according to reporting by kpbs.org. The warnings cover areas including Iowa, northern Illinois, central Illinois, Indiana, central Indiana, and Ohio, as reported by economictimes.indiatimes.com and kpbs.org.
Accounts differ regarding the forecasted rainfall and impact. According to economictimes.indiatimes.com, forecasters placed parts of Iowa, northern Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio under an elevated risk for flooding rainfall, with isolated areas potentially receiving 3 to 6 inches or more if storms repeatedly pass over the same locations. Alternatively, kpbs.org reported that a relentless stretch of thunderstorms has brought devastating flooding across the Midwest, with additional bouts of heavy rainfall expected through at least Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.
According to the Wayne County Emergency Management Agency, officials urged residents in vulnerable parts of Cambridge City, Indiana, to evacuate, economictimes.indiatimes.com reported. Nearly 275,000 homes and businesses in Indiana were without power Thursday morning, while total outages across the Ohio Valley remained above half a million, according to economictimes.indiatimes.com.
Aug 13, 2026, 9:14 a.m. ETFirst report
More than half a million without power in Ohio Valley as flood risk continues across Midwest
Parts of Iowa, northern Illinois, Indiana and Ohio have been placed under an elevated risk for flooding rainfall, with isolated areas possibly receiving 3 to 6 inches or more if storms repeatedly pass over the same locations, the Economic Times reported on Thursday, August 13, 2026.
Nearly 275,000 homes and businesses in Indiana were without power on Thursday morning, while total outages across the Ohio Valley remained above half a million, according to the Economic Times.
Officials urged residents in vulnerable parts of Cambridge City, Indiana, to evacuate, according to the Wayne County Emergency Management Agency as cited in the same report.
The situation is developing. No casualty figures were included in the available reporting, and the full extent of flooding damage has not been established.
Was this report accurate and useful?
Sources
Revision history
- Version 216 Aug 2026, 01:40current
Incorporated National Weather Service warning details, KPBS reporting, affected areas, and contrasting forecast accounts.
- Version 113 Aug 2026, 13:17
First published.
- Version 113 Aug 2026, 13:14current
First published.
- Version 116 Aug 2026, 01:35current
First published.
How we work
This site models an investigative reporter rather than a wire desk. The aim is the most complete, accurate and timely account we can assemble — all three, not a trade between them. Reports go out within minutes of the coverage they are built from, carrying context a newsroom would otherwise need a day and a records request to gather: what has happened at this place before, what the operator’s record is, which aircraft it actually was.
Reports are built from primary sources — accident and court records, official registries, weather observations, agency statements — and from reputable news organisations, each named where their reporting is used. Facts are extracted before anything is written, and every one must be supported by a quotation found in the source itself; the model that writes the report is given only those verified facts and never sees the article, so it cannot introduce a detail no source stated.
Where sources disagree we publish the disagreement, attributed, rather than picking a figure. Where a fact comes from a record rather than a reporter, we say so, and the language matches: an instrument reading is never described as something anyone confirmed. Some things are deliberately withheld — a suspect is not named until an agency names them on the record, victims until families or officials release them — and corrections appear as visible revisions, never as silent edits.
None of that makes a report true. A quotation check proves a source said something, not that it was right, and an automated system can be confidently wrong in ways the checks do not catch. If something here is wrong, the feedback above is how it gets found. The full methodology, including what we refuse to publish.