Ottawa, Ohio resident Helen Rose (l), lost her home to flooding.
Photo credit: Allen Crabtree, American Red Cross Ottawa. OH
August 27, 2007
By: Allen Crabtree, Southern Maine Chapter, Portland ME
Public Affairs Volunteer
Cell (207) 653-9271
“We’ve got to get out! The river is rising!”
Monday, August 27, 2007 – OTTAWA, OH – Helen Rose’s trailer home sits on a bluff overlooking the Blanchard River on the west side of Ottawa. She and her husband Harley have seen the river rise to flood stage before, but the wide stretch of bottom lands that separates their trailer from the river has always been enough to absorb any flood waters before they reach the trailer.
“It flooded before, years ago, but the water only came up to the bottom edge of our porch,” Rose said. “This time, Harley looked out and said we’ve got to get out, the water was already over the porch! We had to wade through chest-deep water to get out to high ground. We’ve lost everything!”
Rose and her husband took refuge first with a neighbor, and then went to the American Red Cross shelter at the Ottawa Senior Citizen Center and the Boy Scout House at Waterworks Park. There the Red Cross provided them and their neighbors forced from their homes a safe place to stay, hot meals, individual and family assistance, and mental health counseling. A Disaster Animal Relief Team (DART) rescued their five cats and found a kennel in Toledo to board them through the emergency.
Red Cross volunteer Sandy Kaple estimates that there were 400 families evacuated in Ottawa, while 108 families chose to stay in their homes and were evacuated later. The evacuation order went out at 6:00 a.m. and the Red Cross shelter was opened an hour later, at 7:00 a.m. The shelter was first opened at the Trinity United Methodist Church but when the storm knocked out power and nearby streets began to flood, it was moved to an alternate location on higher ground.
“People were coming here to the shelter with only the clothes on their backs,” Kaple said. “They were drenched, and you could see from their wet clothes where they had waded through the water. They all said the waters came up so fast they only had time to flee their homes.”
The Putnam County Emergency Operations Center reported that the Blanchard River crested at 31.71 feet on Thursday afternoon (The flood level for the river is 23 feet) after a storm system dropped nearly 9 inches of water on the area, making this the worst flooding since Easter Week floods of 1913 in Ohio. The Main Street of Ottawa and much of the downtown was under water, and it is only in the last day that residents could return to their homes as the water receded. All together, nine counties in Ohio were affected by a week-long downpour that started with the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin moving up the Mississippi River and later combined with a storm system over Minnesota and surrounding states.
The waters have now receded and Ottawa residents are busy cleaning out. The streets are lined with sodden carpet, furniture and clothing, drywall and insulation that have been pulled from homes and businesses. Everywhere is the fecund stench of river mud, mold and decay, and there is a gray scum line on buildings and trees showing how high the flood waters rose.
The American Red Cross continues to provide shelter and support for those affected by the floods and mobile Emergency Response Vehicles (ERVs) are distributing cleanup kits and hot meals throughout the affected neighborhoods.
At Helen Rose’s trailer park, residents are salvaging what possessions they can and wonder if their park will be condemned.
Rose (62) has lived here all of her life, but today she and her husband face an uncertain future. For now they are staying at the Red Cross shelter, and Red Cross volunteers are working to connect them with other agencies and charities to help their recovery.
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Allen Crabtree is a volunteer from the Southern Maine Chapter of the American Red Cross and lives in Sebago, Maine where he is a writer, antiquarian book dealer, blueberry farmer, Chair of the town Board of Selectman, and volunteer fire fighter.
