HAMMOND | With stormwater and traffic flowing almost normally again, residents and officials are asking pointed questions about why one of the nation's busiest stretches of interstate highways was flooded and closed for three full days.

Indiana Department of Transportation officials defended their design of the newly reconstructed Borman Expressway, saying heavy rains were to blame. But people who live and work nearby -- including Hammond's city engineer -- rejected the idea that the road was working like it should have.

Improper drainage, many locals contend, is what prompted the closure that backed up traffic for miles into Illinois and toward Porter County, and caused gridlock on may of the area's main arterial roads.

"I'm not an engineer, but I can tell you there's a problem. And it must be fixed," said Hammond City Councilman Dan Repay, whose district includes the flooded expressway and surrounding neighborhoods. "

The whole design of 80/94 has caused problems for residents from Hessville to Woodmar, and INDOT seems not to have a care in the world," Repay said.

INDOT spokesman Joshua Bingham said the Borman is designed to handle all but the most extreme rains. But last week's storms created a 100-year flood, pushing the river's level above 14 feet, he said.

"It rained a lot. It was an act of nature," Bingham said. "INDOT didn't cause the flood. The rain caused the flood. Please remember that INDOT had crews out there around the clock."

Hammond City Engineer Stanley Dostatni said he believes the reconstructed Borman is susceptible to flooding because the new design narrowed the stormwater ditches considerably, meaning when the area becomes saturated with rising flood waters, the water has nowhere to go but on the road.

INDOT spokeswoman Angie Fegaras said Dostatni was mistaken. Despite how it appears, she said the ditch system was upgraded and is "adequate" for normal amounts of rain.

But Dostatni said the highway flooded in two different places for two different reasons. Just east of the Indianapolis Boulevard intersection, the interstate flooded because a 60-foot section of the old levee along the Little Calumet River failed, allowing water to inundate the entire area near the parking lot for the new Cabela's store.

"Once the levee broke at Northcote (Avenue), they had the problem that even if they pumped it off the road, it was coming in through the breach," Dostatni said.

The breach was repaired Monday afternoon, but that section of levee is scheduled to be entirely rebuilt in the coming months as part of the construction of a Cabela's store. But at the other area of the worst Borman flooding, at the Kennedy Avenue intersection, there were more questions than answers.

Bingham confirmed Dostatni's contention that the intersection was built below the flood plain. Normally that elevation would not matter because run-off water drains down into the Little Calumet River, Bingham said. But when the river depth reaches 12 feet, valves on the drainage system snap shut to prevent the river from flooding up onto the highway.

That left the trapped rain on the highway with nowhere to go -- which is what INDOT would expect to happen in a 100-year flood, Bingham said.

The flaw in that explanation is it does not explain why flooding was concentrated in specific areas even though rain fell across the entire expressway, said Dan Gardner, executive director of the Little Calumet River Basic Development Commission.

"The flooding was too isolated to just say it was the rain," Gardner said. "The best suspicion at this point is that some of the drainage ... to the river was not adequate."