The main beach parking lot at Indiana Dunes State Park, what’s left of it, is swamped by rushing floodwaters on Sunday after collapsing into rubble when the sand beneath was washed out and washed away by the flooding of Dunes Creek.

 “The whole Dunes Creek watershed rose to a level we’ve never seen before,” IDSP Assistant Property Manager Doug Stukey told the Chesterton Tribune today. “It over-topped the dam at the Dunes Creek day-lighting and just washed away the parking lot.

The water levels were unprecedented.”

Stukey said that the secondary parking lot to the west appears not to have sustained any damage.

The main beach parking lot has been closed to all traffic and a meeting of the Great Lakes Beach Association annual conference, scheduled to be held at the Pavilion this afternoon, was moved to the Nature Center.

Stukey did say that the campgrounds were evacuated over the weekend as a precaution and that personnel are still evaluating damage elsewhere in the park.

“But 99 percent of the damage done is to the main parking lot.”

(Photo provided)

Posted 9/15/2008