Snow, ice, floods gang up on Ohio

Snow, ice, floods gang up on Ohio

At least three counties declared driving emergencies in Ohio.

Associated Press

Snow, ice and flooding closed roads and schools across Ohio on Wednesday and left tens of thousands of customers without electricity, a day after voters throughout the state ignored ugly weather and turned out in record numbers to cast their ballots in the presidential primary.

More than a dozen homes were evacuated overnight because of flooding in eastern Ohio’s Jefferson County, and flood warnings remained in effect along rivers around Ohio. But the worst was over in weather-weary Findlay, where the Blanchard River was going down again after cresting above flood stage Tuesday.

School districts, including Cleveland’s, canceled classes Wednesday, and at least three counties declared driving emergencies, meaning only essential vehicles should be on the roads.

Elsewhere, traffic was slowed by accidents on icy roads and detours around trees and power lines brought down by ice and wind.

Outages were most widespread in Northeast Ohio, where a FirstEnergy spokesman said about 96,000 customers had no power as of daybreak Wednesday. The Greater Cleveland Transportation Authority cut back its transit train service because of ice on the lines that supply power to the system. Shuttle bus service was added.

About 12,000 Dayton Power Light were without service Wednesday morning, and efforts to restore power were being hindered by the cold, ice and wind, spokesman Tom Tatham told the Dayton Daily News.

The Jefferson County sheriff ordered about 15 families to evacuate homes overnight along a large stream swelling from heavy rain near the towns of Hammondsville and Irondale. A local grade school was set up as an emergency shelter, said Rob Herrington, assistant director of the county Emergency Management Agency.

With the weather clearing Wednesday, he expected the residents would be allowed to return home by midafternoon.

“Mostly, we’ve had more nuisance flooding than anything, just some water on the roads,” he said.

In flood-prone Findlay, the fire department rescued one motorist whose car stalled in high water Tuesday, when sections of about a dozen low-lying roads along the river were under water and closed. It was the eighth time the Blanchard River has flooded in 15 months, including devastating floods in August and early February.

“The people are getting very flustered with it,” said Garry Valentine, director of the Hancock County Emergency Management Agency. “It’s getting ridiculous.”

The river was back below flood level Wednesday morning.

Despite the weather, about 3.5 million votes were cast in Tuesday’s presidential primary election, topping the previous mark of 2.53 million in 2000.

At least 10 eastern and southern Ohio counties with flooding problems asked the state for permission Tuesday to move primary voting sites located near water-logged roads.

More than half of the voting precincts in western Ohio’s Darke County lost power, and freezing rain forced poll workers with ballots from at least five precincts to request sheriff’s office escorts to the board of elections office.

“We have trees down all around us. Limbs are down all around us,” said elections board director Patricia Fitzwater. “And all day they’ve been cracking.”