River alerts: With Ivan still a vivid memory, progress is being made on a flood warning system

A letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is expected to finally get the ball rolling on a high-tech flood warning system for Marietta and Washington County.

That would be good news, according to Charlotte Keim, president of the Marietta Area Chamber of Commerce, who vividly recalls the events of Saturday, Sept. 18, 2004, after the remnants of Hurricane Ivan passed through the area.

"I got a phone call from my mother-in-law about 5 a.m. She lives in a condo along the Ohio River, and the water was coming up fast," she said. "I rushed to the chamber office (on Third Street at the time) and shot out e-mails to everyone on my list, telling them if they didn't already know, they should start moving stuff out of the way."

At her office, Keim hefted computers onto desk tops, then spent the rest of the morning helping her parents move items to elevated locations at their machine shop on Fourth Street.

"There was no warning, and we didn't know when the river would finally crest," Keim said.

In fact, on the previous Friday afternoon, the National Weather Service had reported that the Ohio River would crest a foot below flood stage, so Keim said everyone believed there would be no major flooding.

By Sunday evening the river finally crested at 44.97 feet in Marietta - nearly 10 feet above flood stage.

In the years since the 2004 flood, an inter-agency government group of flood mitigation specialists called the Silverjackets has been working with Marietta officials on a pilot flood mitigation plan that includes the development of an early warning system on area rivers.

Following a meeting with the Silverjackets team in Columbus earlier this month, Marietta city engineer Joe Tucker told members of city council that efforts to install a state-of-the-art flood warning system on Duck Creek and the Ohio and Muskingum rivers could soon be under way.

"We have to first submit a letter of intent to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Huntington for their Section 502 flood mitigation program," Tucker said.

He said the letter is required to start development of the flood warning system with a $100,000 study by the Corps of Engineers.

The study would enable the corps to gather all of the data available about the local rivers and flood events. That information would then be used to help develop a system of high-tech river and rain gauges that would help generate computer modeling to warn of impending flood events.

Tucker said the data could be tied into Marietta's Community Alert Network reverse 911 notification system to alert neighborhoods that are likely to flood so that residents can take pre-emptive action.

"What we know is if we can give people more time to respond, it will greatly minimize flood damages," he said. "In 2004 there just wasn't enough time to prepare as the river level rose about 22 feet in 24 hours."

Tucker said information from the early warning system would not only be used locally, but would also be fed to agencies like the National Weather Service, U.S. Geological Survey, Corps of Engineers, Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District and others.

The conservancy district is on board with the plan, according to Tucker.

"They have the funding and want to spend money on this project," he said, noting that the MWCD would cover the 35 percent match required for the $100,000 Corps of Engineers study.

"Agencies like the U.S. Geological Survey, Ohio Department of Natural Resources and others will likely also participate and assist with people, equipment or funding," Tucker added.

City council is expected to pass a resolution authorizing the letter during its Aug. 5 regular meeting.

Rob Schafer operates the Schafer Leather Store on Front Street, a longtime Marietta business that has seen plenty of floods. Over the years Schafer has learned what to watch for when the rivers are high and threaten flooding. But he said a warning system could only help.

"A system would be handy, but it would be especially helpful for newer people who come to town and are not experienced with flooding," he said.

Tucker said the system would benefit both Marietta and Washington County, and could prevent more than $50 million in damages during a major flood event.