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Water recedes, opening roads again to traffic

Matthew Hahn, a member of the kitchen staff at the Boathouse BBQ restaurant on Virginia Street, moves a rope around a tree Wednesday morning in the flooded Ohio River as staff members try to reposition a dock moved by high water overnight. (Photo by Michael Kelly)

MARIETTA – It could have been worse.

The Ohio River at the Marietta Pumphouse crested at 35.35 feet, according to the National Weather Service, around midnight Wednesday and by 2 p.m. that afternoon had receded to 32 feet.

The flooding was enough to cover hundreds of feet of Marietta’s River Trail just upstream from the Marietta Boat Club and in several other spots and closed multiple roads and streets in Washington County. School was dismissed early on Tuesday and canceled Wednesday at Frontier High and Middle School and Newport and New Matamoras elementary schools because the intrusion by the river made parts of Ohio 7 and some county roads impassable.

Superintendent Brian Rentsch said Wednesday afternoon the water had receded from roadways and school was to start on schedule today.

“It was over State Route 7 in several places, you couldn’t even get out of New Matamoras,” he said, describing the area when the river crested. On Wednesday, he said, the water had receded.

“You can actually see where it marked the trees, and there’s still a bit of water in affected places,” he said.

Despite early dismissal on Tuesday, some buses had to take alternate routes because of flooding, he said, but all students got home.

On the west side of Marietta, Gilman and Virginia streets were closed. The Boathouse BBQ restaurant, which sits right on the banks of the Ohio, saw the river come up to its doorway but not inside.

On Wednesday morning, four staff members were working to rescue the restaurant’s dock after the rising river had lifted it and moved it downstream a few feet, then dropped it across a small crane used to raise boats. As the water receded, it threatened to break the 100-foot dock in the middle.

As Matthew Hahn, up to his chest in water, tied a rope to the dock and threaded it around a tree and through a chain link fence to be secured on the winch of a Jeep parked on the bank, kitchen manager Tory Auth said the business was fortunate this time.

“The water just washed into the breezeway a bit,” he said. “We were preparing for the worst, moved all the booths, but we had some pretty good luck.”

Watching the dock budge a bit – he estimated its weight at about 5,000 pounds – Auth said the river came up slowly enough for the restaurant to get ready.

By contrast, he said, the February flooding put several feet of water into the restaurant.

“We’ve got a mark on the wall inside,” he said, indicating with his hand a point about four feet off the ground.

Marietta Safety-Service Director Jonathan Hupp said Wednesday afternoon the city hadn’t received any damage reports beyond the usual, which includes flooding in low-lying areas on the city’s west side and encroachment on several low areas of the River Trail.

The next challenge, however, might not be long in coming. Hurricane Florence, according to the National Weather Service, is due to make landfall Friday on the Carolina coast. As of late Wednesday it was a powerful Category 3 hurricane.

The predicted track of the storm moved slightly late Wednesday, placing it farther south with a trajectory over land that includes a wide arc taking in southern West Virginia. The storm’s influence could include an inch or two of rain in the Mid-Ohio Valley and upstream to western Pennsylvania, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Pittsburgh said late Wednesday.

“We expect it to spin a little bit onshore, dump some heavy rain and emerge northward, probably late Saturday into Sunday,” Pat Herald said. “Our confidence level is a little low, depending on what it does. There’s a weak wind field right now, and a large high pressure system to the north. For the Mid-Ohio Valley, we’re talking probably a couple inches of rainfall, maybe Sunday night into Monday.”

Hupp said he’s watching the progress of Hurricane Florence warily but not getting anxiety from it yet.

“Everybody says it’s too far out right now to know what it might do, but I’ve also seen reports that a couple of high pressure systems might keep it to the south. All the meteorologists, everybody’s got something a little bit different,” he said.

“Hopefully, the water level will continue to recede, and if something does occur, we hope it happens in midweek next week so we can absorb the extra rain.”

Hupp said usually flooding depends not on what happens in Marietta but rather upstream, to the north and east.

“It’s not so much what hits us but what hits above us,” he said. “Our flood problems come from days upon days of rain when the ground reaches saturation and everybody above us, up the Muskingum and Pittsburgh in the three-rivers area, gets rain. Hopefully, this hurricane will get used up and never reach us.”

Hupp noted that on the City of Marietta website there are several resources for disaster preparation, including floods. At mariettaoh.net, the flood information tab includes links to current river information from both the National Weather Service and the U.S. Geological Survey, as well as past Marietta flood benchmarks.

“One thing people new to town hear a lot is, ‘know your mark,’ meaning know what flooding benchmark is going to put water into your basement or through your front door,” he said.

The chart of benchmarks online shows which intersections and other city landmarks flood at specific river levels.

Should sandbagging become necessary, the city will provide sand at Parking Partners lot between Second and Union streets just north of Butler Street, he said. The bags themselves are available at American Producers Supply at 119 Second St.

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