Rain triggers flooding fears

Stormwater backed up through two basement drains at the Mahoning County Courthouse.

VINDICATOR STAFF REPORT

Heavy rains Tuesday morning brought back bad memories for some Mahoning Valley residents.

Flooding in summer 2004 destroyed Marie Scott’s Eisenhower Drive condominium in Boardman. Tuesday brought memories of that day.

“The water was right up to the sliding-glass door,” she said, referring to her front yard.

Some neighbors grabbed sandbags Scott keeps in her garage from the 2004 flood and placed them outside the doors of Scott’s home and that of her next-door neighbor.

“Then, it stopped raining,” Scott said.

Water covered the parking lot at Country Fair on South Avenue, but none got inside the store, said Linda Maltbie, store manager.

“It was close,” she said. “Thank God it stopped raining.”

Jason Loree, township administrator, said he is unaware of any residents who encountered water inside their homes. Most calls came from people who saw the heavy rain and feared problems.

“There was a half-hour period where we really had a lot of rain, but it stopped and the water receded,” Loree said.

Reports of high water

There were other reports of high water at Southern Boulevard, LeMans Drive and Indianola Road and other parts of the township, at Center Street and Porter Street in Campbell and throughout the county.

“We’ve had a handful of calls,” said Michael Dockry, Austintown administrator.

They weren’t from one particular area of the township but, rather, scattered throughout, he said.

At the Mahoning County Courthouse in Youngstown, maintenance employees were busy mopping the floor and drying carpets in the basement.

Storm water backed up through two basement drains because of the heavy downpour.

Although some cardboard boxes on the floor containing court records were wet on the bottom, no records were damaged, a deputy clerk of court said. No records were damaged in the recorder’s office or microfilm department.

“It probably can be corrected. We’ll have to adjust our backflow protectors,” said Pete Triveri, county facilities director, adding that the same problem has occurred previously, as recently as last summer.

Other parts of Ohio

In Cleveland, the second big downpour in five days flooded some streets and more than 200 people were evacuated from an apartment complex in suburban Parma because of concerns about a flooded electric transformer.

Storms in Cleveland forced the shutdown of a flooded emergency room at MetroHealth Medical Center and knocked out power to St. Vincent Charity Hospital’s ER. The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo closed about 11 a.m. Tuesday when water from a rain-swollen creek surged across a parking lot, flooding offices. No animals were affected.

The wet weather also was more helpful in northwest Ohio where heavy rains drenched dry farm fields for the second time in three days.

Southern Ohioans, however, continued to cope with extreme heat and humidity.

Health officials urged heat precautions, especially for the elderly, in Cincinnati, Dayton and other parts of southwest Ohio on Tuesday as temperatures hit the upper 90s, with high humidity expected to make it feel like 105 to 110 degrees by today.