Moving somewhere new means losing your information network overnight. You used to know which station had the good weather forecast, where to find out why the road was closed, and how the school told parents about snow days. Now you know none of it.
Here is the map I give newcomers to Greater Lafayette, sorted by what kind of information you need. I am keeping it to sources that exist and work, and I am staying out of opinions about any of them.
Official sources come first
For anything that affects your property, your taxes, your trash day, or your road, go to the government source before anyone else.
The City of Lafayette and the City of West Lafayette each run official websites with department contacts, service schedules, parks programs, and public meeting agendas. Tippecanoe County covers the assessor, auditor, treasurer, recorder, highway department, and the areas outside city limits.
The county site also has an alert center where you can sign up for notifications. Ten minutes setting that up in your first week is time well spent. The overview of which office handles what is in the city services guide.
A tip from experience. Public meeting agendas for planning and zoning are where you find out about development near a home before it is built. If you are buying near open land, reading a few months of agendas is a smart hour.
Schools have their own channels
There are three public school corporations in the county: Lafayette School Corporation, Tippecanoe School Corporation, and West Lafayette Community School Corporation. Each runs its own website and sends alerts directly to enrolled families. Tippecanoe School Corporation, for example, has a mobile app with calendars and push notifications.
Closings and delays are announced through those systems first. Local TV and radio carry them too, but the district's own notice is the one that counts.
If you are still choosing where to live, the district websites are also where boundary information and enrollment steps live. I explained how the districts are organized in school districts explained.
Local news outlets
Greater Lafayette has a real local news ecosystem for a community its size, which is not true everywhere anymore.
The Journal & Courier is the daily newspaper, covering both cities and the county with print and online editions. WLFI, branded News 18, is the local television station and a common source for weather coverage. The Purdue Exponent is a long-running independent student newspaper that covers campus and the surrounding community.
For radio, WBAA carries public radio for the area, and commercial stations including WASK air local news and weather updates. Radio is worth remembering during a storm when the power is out and your phone battery matters.
Different outlets cover different things well. Read a few for your first couple of months and you will figure out which fits how you like to get your news.
Purdue news
Purdue is the largest institution in the area, and what happens there shapes traffic, the calendar, and the housing market.
The Purdue newsroom publishes official university announcements, and the university events calendar lists what is open to the public. If you work at Purdue, internal channels will reach you automatically. If you do not, following the newsroom is still useful for knowing when move-in week, commencement, and big events will fill the roads.
The library as an information hub
People forget the library when they think about information. They should not.
The Tippecanoe County Public Library and the West Lafayette Public Library both offer reference help, local history resources, community bulletin boards, and access to newspapers and databases. Librarians are some of the most useful people in any town for answering a question that does not fit anywhere else.
More on what the libraries offer newcomers is in libraries and community spaces.
Community calendars and visitor resources
For events, festivals, and things to do, Visit Lafayette-West Lafayette, the local tourism bureau, keeps a community calendar. Greater Lafayette Commerce, the regional chamber, covers business news and economic development. Downtown organizations post their own event schedules.
None of these are news sources in the strict sense, but they are how you find out about the farmers market opening day or the summer concert series.
A word on social media groups
Every community has neighborhood Facebook groups and online forums, and Greater Lafayette is no exception.
They are useful for recommendations, like a plumber, a pediatrician, or a good place for a kid's birthday party. They are not reliable for facts. I see confident posts about school boundaries, zoning, flood zones, and road projects that are simply wrong.
My rule is simple. Use groups for opinions and leads. Use official sources for facts. When the two disagree, the official source wins.
Following news that affects your home
Most local news is interesting. Some of it directly affects the value and daily life of your house, and that is the category worth following on purpose.
Road projects come first. A multi-season construction project can change your commute and the traffic on your street, and the cities and the county post project information and closures on their websites. Check before you buy near a major corridor.
Development comes second. New subdivisions, commercial projects, and rezoning requests go through public planning meetings before anything is built. The agendas are public, and local news outlets often cover the larger ones.
Property tax and assessment notices come third. The county assessor and auditor post deadlines and information on the county website, and missing an appeal window is a common and avoidable mistake. My overview of that system is in Indiana property taxes in plain English.
None of this requires hours a week. A quick scan of official sites every month or so, plus one local outlet, keeps you ahead of the surprises.
Weather information
Weather deserves its own category here because it changes plans more often than anything else.
The National Weather Service office in Indianapolis issues forecasts and warnings for Tippecanoe County. Local TV meteorologists add local context and live coverage during severe weather. Turn on emergency alerts on your phone, and consider a weather radio for overnight warnings.
Your first-week setup
If you want a short version, do this in your first week here.
- Bookmark your city website and the county website.
- Sign up for county notifications.
- Download your school corporation's app and confirm your contact info with the school.
- Pick one local news outlet to follow online.
- Get a library card.
- Turn on emergency alerts on every phone in the house.
The rest of the early checklist is in your first month in Greater Lafayette.
What none of these sources will tell you
All of the above is good for what is official and what is public. It does not tell you what it is like to live on a particular street.
You can find listings anywhere. What you cannot Google is which road floods after a heavy rain, which subdivision has a development planned behind it that has not made the news yet, or what a neighborhood sounds like on a Friday night in September. That local knowledge, gathered over years of walking through homes here, is what actually protects a buyer.
If you are moving here and want someone who already has the map in their head, grab a time on my calendar and ask me anything. No pressure either way. A real person reads every message.