Recordpub.com - Rivers recede in south Ohio Northern counties, including Portage brace for more snow

By Terry Kinney

Associated Press

CINCINNATI -- Is this spring or never-ending winter? Depends on where you are in Ohio.

Flood victims in the southern part of the state spent Friday cleaning up gunk from some of the heaviest rain in years, while northern Ohio braced for a return of snow.

Dorothy Combs wielded a pressure washer to flush mud from the porch of her home in South Lebanon and a broom to push water across her basement floor to a sump pump.

"Water is still seeping into the basement because the ground is so saturated," Combs said.

She said a visit to the town near Cincinnati on Thursday evening by Gov. Ted Strickland was a nice touch but probably wouldn't mean any financial help to replace the ruined appliances -- furnace, central air, water heater and water softener -- in her basement.

"We're looking at $8,000 just to get those appliances taken care of," she said.

She and her husband, Robert, have flood insurance, she said.

High water caused headaches elsewhere. About 60 state roads were closed or partly blocked by flooding, and for the second morning in a row, commuters heading into Columbus had to detour around a major artery. This time it was state Route 315 north of the city in Delaware County, where crews had to pump off water before the southbound lanes could reopen.

"Roadways are beginning to open up, restrictions are being removed. So that's a good sign," said Scott Varner, deputy director of the Ohio Department of Transportation.

Motorists and their cars' suspension systems were feeling the effects of the state's weather pattern.

"There have been a few more potholes than usual due to the winter and the cleanup from the floods," said Greene County Engineer Bob Geyer.

In northern Ohio, forecasters expected 3 to 6 inches of snow in a band from Toledo to Youngstown. In downtown Cleveland, piles of dirty snow lined the street where worshippers filed out of a Good Friday service at St. John Cathedral.

A white Easter was in the forecast.

"I'm tired of it, yes I am," said Larry Wetzel, 59, of suburban Independence, who uses light therapy in the morning to deal with seasonal affective disorder.

"It's pretty hard when the sun doesn't come out for a week at a time," he said.

Joe Seguin, 44, of Shaker Heights, said his only winter complaint was drivers who don't slow down in the snow.

"Other than that, it's just part of life," Seguin said. "It doesn't bother me at all."

Combs, 49, said her home close to the Little Miami River had been flooded twice before in the 27 years she's lived there, in 1997 and in 2004, but this time was the worst.

The couple had just decided a month ago to put the house up for sale.

"I do wish I had sold it before this happened," Combs said.

Flooding from the same storm system that hit Ohio midweek has been blamed for at least 16 deaths across the Midwest -- three in Ohio, including two people who were swept away after driving into high water.

Most rivers were receding Friday, but the Great Miami River at Miamitown, northwest of Cincinnati, was still out of its banks, as was the Scioto River at Circleville and Piketon.

Farmland along the Scioto in Jasper, a hamlet about 60 miles south of Columbus, remained flooded but damage to nearby homes appeared minimal, said Donald Simonton, director of the Emergency Management Agency in Pike County.

The Great Miami, which was expected to fall below flood stage by Friday night, crested at 25.85 feet Wednesday at Miamitown, the fourth highest level since 1959, when record-keeping began at that location, the weather service said.

Forecasters on Friday turned their attention to the Ohio River, which had crested just below the 52-foot flood stage at Cincinnati on Thursday but was expected to fall and then begin creeping up again as rainfall upriver made its way downstream.

A low-lying section of U.S. 52 south of the city was under water Friday. That area floods when the Ohio reaches 42 feet, and the weekend rise was not expected to exceed flood stage downtown.