Many areas of the Upper Ohio Valley experienced flash flooding over the weekend after more than three inches of rain drenched the region several times Saturday afternoon.
Flooding was reported in Ohio, Marshall, and Belmont counties, but the Ohio River crested Sunday afternoon at 29.56 feet on Wheeling Island. The waterway is predicted to drop under the action stage of 27 feet by tomorrow morning.
“We didn’t have issues with Big Wheeling Creek or the Ohio River,” said Lou Vargo, director of the Emergency Management Agency in Ohio County. “Where we saw the problems was along the streams and runs that we have all over the county.
“One call that we received was that a pick-up truck overturned along Browns Run, but thankfully we were notified that the occupants were able to get out of that vehicle safely,” he explained. “We had another truck that became trapped on a bridge along Wildlife Road (near Dallas Pike), but the water receded quickly enough that first responders didn’t have to go with the swift water team into the water to rescue them.”
Elm Run
For the second time in the past few years, Elm Run flowed over its banks Saturday evening along Popular Avenue and Elm Street in the Woodsdale section of Wheeling.
The stream became an issue five years ago when former council representatives David Miller and Don Atkinson led an effort for emergency dredging to clear a large amount of debris that collected over a long period of time. Several privately owned bridges are present along Elm Street, and the property owners were advised at the time to maintain the clearings beneath the spans.
“It was just a case where the owners weren’t aware of the debris under those bridges because they could see the areas where it had collected,” Atkinson explained. “So, after we had it all cleared out, we told the owners about it, and we hoped that would take care of it.
“That was a lot of rain, and the run-off hit a lot of different areas including where we live in Dimmeydale. On Sunday, you saw those red trucks from Panhandle (Cleaning and Restoration) everywhere,” he said. “It brought down a lot of mud and rocks because we were pretty saturated already, but at least a lot of people were home that evening because of the stay-at-home order, so they could begin the clean-up immediately.”
More than 20 crews from Panhandle Cleaning and Restoration were dispatched Saturday night and Sunday to various residences and complexes throughout the Wheeling area. Each employee worked on water and mud extraction, the clearing of soaked drywall, carpet, and padding as well as cleaning the salvageable, according to Josh Contraguerro, vice president of Specialty Services. In some cases, he added, steam cleaning, disinfecting, and removing exterior debris were needed.
Many residents of the Woodsdale neighborhood, however, believe the lumbering that took place on the hilltop between Bethany Pike and Edgington Lane is the direct cause for the flooding.
Vargo, though, explained on The Watchdog (98.1 FM WKKX and 97.7 FM WVLY) Monday afternoon that Elm Run has a long history of flooding in the Elm Street and America Avenue areas.
“It doesn’t overflow very often, but when the area gets hit like that with that much rain in that little time, it does,” he said. “Really, there’s no way for us to determine if what’s occurred on that hilltop is the cause, or if it was caused by more than three inches of very hard rainfall.
“I know there are residents who have said that they’ve never experienced the run-off along Edgwood Street, and that concerns us, and that’s why it would be a good idea for the city to take a hard look at it so what needs done to correct can be done.
Atkinson wholeheartedly agrees.
“It’s definitely something that needs to be looked at right now,” the former Council member said. “It is the cause? I don’t know because I’m not the expert on things like that, but I believe the city needs to have those experts come in and take a hard look so everyone will know how to move forward.
“If the owners of that property up there need to do some things to make it stop, then that’s what should take place sooner rather than later,” Atkinson said. “Again, that was a lot of rain that fell really quickly, so it needs to be determined if it would have happened anyway, or if those owners need to get people back up there to make it stop.”
Detour Routes.
When officials of the W.Va. Division of Highways released maps for the primary detours through the city of Wheeling, Vargo joined Ohio County Sheriff Tom Howard with concerns pertaining to the route utilizing National Road (U.S. Route 40) up and over Wheeling Hill.
“We have seen some major slips that area after we have a lot of rain,” Howard explained. “From the very beginning of the I-70 projects, our deputies have kept on eye on it because it’s now our rainy season in the Valley. If something happens along that stretch of National Road, we’ll see a big back-up of traffic immediately because of the amount of cars and trucks that have been taking it so far.
“So far, so good though, and we’ll keep our fingers crossed,” he said. “We usually get a decent amount of rain around here during the spring, and last year it continued through June. Let’s hope that’s not the case again this year.”
Several debris barriers were erected by the DOH nine years ago along Wheeling Hill, but where the roadway intersects with Mount Wood Road is where a significant project is long overdue, according to the sheriff.
“We’ve seen it happen there before, and I’m sure we’ll see it again,” Howard said. “The last time, a very large boulder came down, and it closed one of the lanes at the top for a while before the debris was finally removed just before the I-70 projects got started.
“I know the (DOH) folks in Charleston know about the issue because we were pretty clear about it during the meetings we had leading up to the beginning of the bridge projects, so hopefully we can continue getting lucky,” he said. “So far, the detour has worked pretty well with only a few issues. I do hope more of the truckers choose to take I-470 because of the concerns the people who live in North Wheeling have expressed.”
