Rain causes woes around state

An Ashtabula County man is missing after a swimming accident.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A woman was killed while trying to save her daughter from raging floodwaters in northern Ohio, the first death reported in three days of storms that also produced five weak tornadoes in the southwestern part of the state.
In Northeast Ohio, rescue crews resumed searching on Thursday for a man who had been swimming in a rain-swollen creek in Ashtabula County.
Flash flood warnings remained in effect through Thursday morning for parts of the state, including hard-hit Ashland and Richland counties, where the Mansfield woman was killed Wednesday.
The heavy rains transformed a drainage ditch into a fast-moving creek at Kingwood Center, a public garden in Mansfield that Dianna Snyder, 40, and her 9-year-old daughter were visiting.
The girl slipped on a stone walkway over the creek and was swept through 460 feet of drainage pipe into another creek, police Lt. Dave Nirode said.
Snyder jumped in to rescue her daughter and apparently drowned, Nirode said. Firefighters found her body about 100 feet downstream from where her daughter emerged from the drainage pipe.
The girl was able to get out of the water and sought help from groundskeepers and a security guard. She was not seriously injured, Nirode said.
Snyder's body was taken to Columbus, where the Franklin County coroner's office was expected to perform an autopsy Thursday.
The girl fell into a creek bed that is usually dry, Nirode said, but the steady rain swelled the creek to 4 feet deep and about 10 feet wide.
"We had flooding in places that I didn't know we had water," Nirode said.
Search
In Ashtabula County, firefighters, sheriff's divers and a Coast Guard helicopter crew resumed searching on Thursday for a 21-year-old man reported missing from a group swimming in a creek near the northeast Ohio village of Jefferson, said Petty Officer Matt Schofield with the Coast Guard in Cleveland.
Rain forced road closures and flooded basements in Mansfield in north-central Ohio, an area of the state that received up to 7 inches of rain Monday, the National Weather Service said.
Flooding from Monday's rain forced more than 150 campers at Mohican State Park, about 20 miles southeast of Mansfield, to abandon their belongings and flee to emergency shelters. Some of the campgrounds along the Mohican River and its tributaries remained closed Wednesday due to high water. Officials said the park was to reopen Friday.
Forecasts for Ashland and Richland counties predicted a chance of additional rain through Thursday, while the Ashtabula forecast called for the weather to dry out.
No injuries were reported in Tuesday's high winds and tornadoes, which toppled gravestones, knocked down power lines and damaged roofs of homes and businesses in southwest Ohio.
The weather service confirmed five weak tornadoes touched down, two in Warren County and one each in Clermont, Clark and Montgomery counties.