“When we arrived to the area where the first responders were, we really couldn’t see much at all because it was nighttime, so it was dark. All we did was stand there listening to the screams for help. But we were helpless. There was nothing we could do. It was terrible. I couldn’t believe it. It ripped our hearts out is what it did.”
– Jack Regis – Member of the Martins Ferry Volunteer Fire Department
On a recent walk near his house outside of Bellaire and along Brooks Run, former Ohio lawmaker Jack Cera picked up a couple of fallen tree twigs and nearly tossed them into the stream.
“That’s when I thought, ‘Oh, I probably shouldn’t do that,” admitted Cera, who was a state representative 32 years ago when 26 men, women, and children perished on June 14 in flash flooding along Wegee and Pipe creeks. “Because, when you’ve experienced it, you never forget it, and you think about it more than you realize.”
Nearly six inches of rain had fallen on East Ohio that evening, and Cera said as many “three or four” fell in one hour after sunset. The storm’s flooding destroyed 80 homes and damaged at least 250 more.
“I didn’t go to bed that night because it was raining so damned hard. And the lightning was crazy. It wasn’t a normal storm,” he remembered. “And all we heard after Wegee and Pipe creeks flooded back in 1990 was that the debris was the big problem.
“And all I can tell you is when I was up in a helicopter above the river, it seemed like the debris covered the entire Ohio River. There was that much, and people with the National Guard said it was 15 acres wide,” Cera said. “All I know is that I spent most of my time in that helicopter looking for survivors in that debris. That’s what came into my mind right before I was going to toss those twigs into that stream, and that’s why I didn’t toss them.”
The Roar
When the dam of debris broke, some people were in bed, others were at the 3 K’s Bar, and several residents were sitting in their living rooms until, of course, they didn’t have a living room anymore.
It was close to that time when Cera’s home phone rang.
“It was around 10 p.m. when a man who called himself the grandfather called me. He told me his grandkids got swept away by the water, and he couldn’t get anyone to help him look for them,” the former lawmaker recounted. “So, after I got down to Shadyside, I found a guy who was in the National Guard, and I was telling him about those children, and he was telling me about everything else his men were doing, and that’s when Gov. (Richard) Celeste walked up and said, ‘Jack, what is going on?’ You saw the soldier’s eyes get real big at that point.
“I told the governor that we had two babies that were missing and that we needed someone to try to find them, and the Governor made an order, and people went to look,” he said. “The Guard did send a crew, and they found the babies’ bodies in the creek. To this day, it’s one of the saddest things I’ve ever been involved with.”
During the days and weeks that followed, Cera discovered how many of the victims he had known and that he was acquainted with several folks now without homes.
“You know how it is around here. It seems we’re all connected to each other somehow, some way, and when a tragedy like that takes place, it’s over and over again. It’s constant sadness,” he said. “It was just an awful experience, and we didn’t have the services and the equipment back then like we do now. Back then, we didn’t have swift boat rescue teams and things like that.
“I know as a lawmaker I wanted to be involved with anything and everything that was going to develop those things and make things better than what they were because when those floods happened, we all felt so helpless, and that’s because there really was nothing we could do,” Cera said. “So, we went to Columbus after that, and we came up with an idea, and then we got the support we needed. It was the beginning, sure, but at least now people can get warned. There was no warning back then. None at all.”
Funny Noises
These days our radios, televisions, and cell phones deliver emergency notices, but that was not the case in 1990. Three decades ago, the residents of the Upper Ohio Valley had the daily weather forecast on which to depend and each other.
That was about it.
“There were people who had to drive up and down the roadways in the area to warn people more flooding could happen because that’s all they could do. We didn’t have cell phones then, and we didn’t have the internet or any type of warning systems,” Cera said with frustration in his voice. “Knowing so many were affected made it worse. Knowing that 26 people died may it THE worst.
“Sitting here today, you just hope it never happens again, but at the same time, you worry it could,” he said. “Debris played a big factor in that flood, and I’m sure there’s debris along those creeks today. I saw from that helicopter the debris field in the river, and I fear we’ve made the same mistake again.”
It wasn’t until 32 years ago today, June 15, 1990, according to Cera, when the screams faded, and reality really set in.
“All we saw were piles of stuff,” Cera said. “The craziest thing about it was while you were riding along creeks the next day, you saw one house pushed off its foundation and down the road, and then there would be another house completely untouched because of the way the flood traveled that night. It was an experience I wouldn’t wish on anyone ever.
“But then I take rides around the county these, and I see all of this stuff piled up along the banks, and it makes me worry,” the former lawmaker added. “With the kind of weather we’ve been having with these big dumps of rain, you never know anymore. And you always watch now where the storms are coming from, and I can tell you right now that if there’s a storm coming from the south, it makes me very nervous.”
