Frances delivers another blow to counties in Ohio

Many areas were hit hard by flooding earlier and are damaged again.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Parts of Ohio still trying to recover from flooding earlier this year took another hit from the remnants of Hurricane Frances, with strong rain contributing to two deaths and forcing people to leave their damaged homes.
Gov. Bob Taft declared a state of emergency Thursday in Belmont, Columbiana, Guernsey, Harrison, Jefferson, Morgan, Noble, Tuscarawas, Muskingum and Perry counties, allowing the state to help local agencies with recovery efforts.
The National Weather Service said 3 to 7 inches of rain fell across eastern and southeastern Ohio on Wednesday, when two people were killed.
What happened
A 9-year-old girl drowned after a rain-swollen stream swept her off a footbridge as she walked home from school in Tuscarawas County, and a 65-year-old man suffered a heart attack while helping his landlord pump water out of a basement in Cambridge, authorities said.
Water still had not receded in some places Thursday.
The 55 ground-level apartments at the Village Green complex in Crooksville remained under water, said Denny Dew, chief of the volunteer fire department in the Perry County town.
"It was like a constant heavy downpour that just wouldn't stop for about five straight hours," he said.
Fled their home
David Hughes and his family fled their Crooksville home out the back door as the water neared. They escaped uphill in a Jeep.
"In some rooms the floors are buckling," said Hughes, 46. Water rising from a nearby creek reached the floor support beams and he was testing the carpeting to see if it seeped into rooms.
Hughes made out better than his neighbors across the street: they had up to 2 feet of water inside their homes. Like many of his neighbors, Hughes said he has no flood insurance.
Elsewhere in Crooksville, Eric Embrey, 28, wasn't able to drive out of his neighborhood because of water rising 2 feet and 3 feet on the street. "It was pretty bad. It rained all day and into the night," he said.
Homes unlivable
Shadyside, where 26 people died in flooding on June 14, 1990, experienced no severe flooding this time, but there were problems elsewhere in Belmont County.
Commissioner Charles Probst said at least 300 homes aren't livable.
"People are unable to get back into their homes due to flood damage and destruction, and we're trying to find temporary housing. We need to make sure houses are structurally sound," he said.
He said two people were rescued from a tree limb above floodwaters in Smith Township.
Taft also has asked for federal disaster relief for Columbiana County, where floodwaters washed away homes and roads in a storm Aug. 27-28.
"It's two major flooding events in a very short period of time. We just hope we don't see any more rain for a long time," said Jay Carter, the county's emergency management director.
There is no way to know whether the next major storm system -- Hurricane Ivan -- could eventually make its way to Ohio, said Greg Romano, a National Weather Service spokesman in Silver Springs, Md.
"It's really way too soon," Romano said. "I haven't seen any models to indicate where it would go beyond five days out. As we saw with Frances, the remnants of the storm could track north, but it depends on where it makes landfall and the atmospheric condition."
This storm was far worse than minor flooding that hit Muskingum County twice earlier this year, said Dan Hartman, executive director of the Muskingum Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross.
"The other flooding was localized along a creek area, and this is widespread," he said.
A pocket of Noble County homes that have gone through months of repairs from a late May flash flood were hit again, said Chasity Schmelzenbach, the county emergency management director.
"Those folks were starting to get their homes back, and here we are again," she said.
40 homes
Damage had been reported in more than 40 homes and 11 businesses in Noble County, she said. Most people were staying with friends or relatives, though a church was still offering hot meals Thursday.
This flood, because of the slow, soaking rain, did less damage to roads and culverts than floods in January and May, Schmelzenbach said.
Many schools and roads were closed in eastern Ohio on Thursday. A large sinkhole opened suddenly in one road in Trumbull County.
Wills Creek through Cambridge had risen to higher than 23 feet -- 8 feet above flood stage -- and could crest at more than 24 feet, Guernsey County spokesman Tim Welch said.
Closed roads, which included Interstate 70 for a few hours, were "too numerous to mention," Welch said, but most people were able to find detours to avoid being stranded.