ATHENS COUNTY, Ohio — Communities around Southeast Ohio are reeling following a series of storms that drenched the region on Tuesday.
At 5:50 a.m. Aug. 12, the National Weather Service extended a flood warning for the county until 6 p.m. More rain is expected on Thursday and Friday, according to Ohio University’s Scalia Laboratory forecast on Wednesday. A flood watch — which means flooding is possible — remains in effect through Friday morning.
Gov. Mike DeWine declared a state of emergency for Perry, Muskingum and Morgan counties and activated the Ohio National Guard’s high-water rescue unit to assist with evacuations in Roseville and Crooksville. Images on social media showed
Data from the U.S. Geological Service’s Hocking River monitoring station show the river rising more than 15 feet as a result of the rainstorm. According to their gauge on August 10 at 1:15 p.m. the Hocking River was at 3.19 ft, at that same time today the river was recorded at 18.84 feet.
One resident of Roseville, on the border of Perry and Muskingum counties, was killed, the Statehouse News Bureau reported. An elderly man experiencing a health crisis died because responders could not reach him, the Perry County Tribune reported.
Because of phone outages in Perry County, Athens County 911 handled calls from Corning and Crooksville.
“Not only were we handling 911 emergency calls for Athens County, we were also assisting Perry County, which — they had some severe rescues ongoing,” said Athens County 911 Director and Athens County Emergency Management Agency Director Teresa Fouts-Imler.
Regionally, Ohio Department of Transportation District 10 manager Ashley Rittenhouse said the ongoing flooding is “widespread and significant.” Rittenhouse said it’s unusual for so many of the district’s Southeast Ohio counties to experience flooding at the same time.
Fouts-Imler told the Independent Wednesday around 1 p.m. that the county had received 1,121 phone calls from “yesterday midnight till today,” including emergency, non-emergency, and inter-office calls from Athens and Perry counties.
The calls included “42 vehicles in floodwater, electrical wires down,” Fouts-Imler said. “We had transformer fires, traffic hazards, trees down — numerous. Our volunteer fire departments were just all over the county removing trees. Our township trustees, same thing, out moving trees, getting debris off of roadways, assisting people doing rescues, getting people out of the floodwater. It was very eventful.”
Flooding was especially bad in the northern end of the county as well as in the city of Athens. The simultaneous but isolated impacts on those areas made this flood “a little bit different than we are used to,” Fouts-Imler said.
The situation will hopefully improve in the hours and days ahead, Fouts-Imler said. She noted that water may be moving quickly enough to offset any additional rain.
However, Fouts-Imler added, “We’re looking at the flood levels, and we’re hoping that we don’t get any further rain.”
Trimble and Glouster
In northern areas of the county, Fouts-Imler said she hadn’t seen floodwater so high since the floods of 1998, when she was working as a local 911 dispatcher.
The NWS reported that Sunday Creek in Glouster was in minor flood stage at nearly 16 feet as of 10 a.m. Wednesday – down from a crest of over 17 feet around midnight.
Fouts-Imler said that seeing floodwaters reaching into the middle of Glouster brought back memories of the unprecedented flooding almost 30 years ago.
“I haven’t seen flooding in that portion of town since that flood of ’98,” she said.
Trimble Mayor Doug Davis said Wednesday morning that although flood waters on Sunday Creek had begun to recede, he was still scrambling to get the message across to residents to avoid traveling on flooded roadways.
“You can’t drive through right down there by [State Route] 13, it’s too deep,” Davis said.
Fouts-Imler said the Glouster Volunteer Fire Department conducted a water rescue around 8 p.m. on Tuesday.
In addition to danger to individuals who drive their cars through water, Davis said, “You’re pushing water in these people’s houses.”
Davis said that some homes were flooded Wednesday morning. He said the situation was not as bad for the village as flood events that preceded the village’s work to remove structures in the floodplain, however.
The flooding in Trimble was comparable to some of the worst flooding the village has seen in recent years — “but it still don’t compete with the one in ’98,” Davis said.
Davis said that the Ohio Department of Transportation has previously helped manage traffic through the village during flooding by posting signage on State Route 329, which ODOT manages. That didn’t happen this time, Davis said.
Rittenhouse, ODOT’s District 10 media representative, said she did not have specific information on what happened with that particular roadway. According to ODOT, SR 329 southbound out of Trimble remained closed as of 12:15 p.m. on Wednesday.
“We’re trying to work through it,” Davis said. “Everyone’s bottlenecked in.”
Glouster Mayor Nathan Simons did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
Athens
Coates Run flows parallel to Richland Avenue along much of the street’s full length. But for about an hour yesterday, Richland Avenue was Coates Run.
Fouts-Imler told the Independent that emergency services conducted multiple water rescues within the city.
At 375 Richland Ave., five Athens Insurance Services employees waited out about 90 minutes of high waters.
“We were stranded on an island,” Andy Vogt told the Independent.
The company’s building sits just high enough to be out of harm’s way, Vogt said, so Athens Insurance Services wasn’t as affected. But, he said, all businesses on Richland Avenue are affected when Coates Run floods and makes drive-thrus like McHappys, McDonalds, and Wendy’s inoperable, as on Tuesday.
“And it’s already the second time since the spring that this has happened,” he said.
The county experienced widespread flooding in early April and again in mid-June.
Coates Run flooding in June closed Purple Chopstix, at 371 Richland Ave., for nearly a month. The restaurant reopened less than a month ago, only to be inundated again on Tuesday.
“We’re closed today because we had water in the whole restaurant, every room. Again,” co-owner Gabe Fisher told the Independent on Wednesday. “I was trapped inside while the water rose two feet around the whole building.”
After the waters subsided, he said, “We were in there all day yesterday, just power washing and cleaning, and now we’ve got dehumidifiers and air movers and fans.”
“We’re just hoping that it’ll dry out quickly,” he said. “We just have to see if we’re able to open for the weekend or if we have to stay closed all week.”
Recovering from the storm
The Athens County Board of Commissioners declared a state of emergency Wednesday, following a recommendation by Fouts-Imler. The declaration will would allow the county to move more quickly to address road damages, Fouts-Imler’s said.
The county will also submit a damage assessment survey to the state, which, if certain thresholds are met, would allow the Ohio Emergency Management Agency to place the county under a formal state of emergency. That would open the door to state aid in recovering from the flood.
“With us having to repair county roads, township roads, we could get assistance for that,” Fouts-Imler said.
For individual properties, Athens County planner and floodplain administrator Connor Lavelle supports damage assessments for individual property owners in unincorporated areas. Lavelle said, “[I] communicate with property owners and make sure they understand what the rules and regulations are for repairing or rebuilding anything that was damaged.”
Incorporated areas each have their own floodplain administrator who can help impacted property owners, Lavelle said.
Flood damage can be especially impactful for property owners whose homes are not up to current floodplain regulations. When a structure is damaged at more than 50% of its current valuation, Lavelle said that structure must be repaired to meet current regulations. Lavelle said a FEMA program can help people who find themselves in that situation.
Lavelle said it is important for property owners to contact their floodplain administrator when they experience flood damage.
“I think there could sometimes be a feeling after a disaster that you want to rebuild right away, and that’s where we have to make sure that we’re reminding the property owners and the communities in these floodprone areas that there is some higher standards and regulations that need to be met,” Lavelle said.
Note: This story was updated following initial publication, around 5 p.m. on Aug. 12, to include information on the state of emergency declared by the Athens County Board of Commissioners.
