Saturday - March 13: As of 11:21 this morning the National Weather Service (NWS)has cancelled the Flood Watch for Wellsville and several other areas up and down the Ohio River. A Flood Warning was issued for this area this past Thursday mainly for creeks & streams due to the snow melt. That quickly turned into a Watch with the unseasonable warm temperatures Wednesday, Thursday & Friday. A week ago you didn't have to leave your front porch to see piles of snow. By this morning you have to search for one.
We started taking pictures of Wellsville's flood gage on the side of the Wells Avenue bridge this past Wednesday. See the right column in the collage above. The top one is Wednesday, the middle Thursday and the bottom one around noon today.
Friday, Village Street workers dug out the holding plates for the flood gate frame and the rumors started flying. Chief Bill Smith and members of the Wellsville Fire Depts. were all over it. Around 5:30 P.M. Friday afternoon we were told early Sunday morning was decision time. The NWS was forecasting water levels would hit flooding for the Village late Sunday night into the wee hours of Monday morning with the amount of rain predicted. The Fire Dept. wanted to put the flood gate up in daylight if it looked like it was going to be needed.
Fortunately the heavy rains were being pushed off to the northwest by a low pressure center sitting over the state of Indiana. The heavy stuff got pushed away from our area. The NWS alert says the river levels will remain high on through next week but it doesn't appear it will be high enough to force flooding at as many points as earlier expected. It doesn't look like the flood gate will be needed this time. They didn't even need the pumps. According to the WFVD spokesman Barry Podwell the highest the water level reached toward flooding was 4.4 feet. The pumps are turned on when it hits 10 feet. The water over the Wells Ave. bridge starts nearing the street level at 16 feet.
Getting pictures a little earlier today we came upon Mayor Joe Surace and Chief Smith being interviewed by Youngstown's Channel 21 Healthy Living Reporter Susan Campbell. The Camera man is Mike Candiotti. Ms. Campbell said it might be on the 6 o'clock news this evening.
Now that the Flood Watch has been down graded we wonder if they will still use it? We'll have to wait & see.
Keep dry...
ole nib
2 comments:
Nib.
WFMJ put the video on the net about the possible flood.
Here's the link:
http://www.wfmj.com/global/category.asp?c=179433&clipId=4619575&topVideoCatNo=127770&autoStart=true
Thanks Spark. We found it last night. Anyone wanting to see the Ville's spot on the tube just follow the link Sparky sent in.
As a foot note it's nice to pull up the NWS web site and not see any weather warnings posted for our area. It's a big relief for all.
nib
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