Rivers to crest below flood stage
By JEFFREY SAULTON and BRETT DUNLAP, jsaulton@newsandsentinel.com bdun
POSTED: March 21, 2008
PARKERSBURG — Now that the rain has passed, river levels are expected to crest below flood stage in the Mid-Ohio Valley.
According to the National Weather Service, levels on the Ohio River will probably fall a few inches short of previous forecasts.
John Victory of the National Weather Service in South Charleston said as of 9:45 p.m. Thursday, the Ohio River at Marietta was at 32.45 feet, almost three feet below the 35-foot flood stage and is expected to crest at 33.2 feet by early this afternoon. In Parkersburg, the river level was 33.15 at 9:45 p.m. Thursday and is expected to crest at 34.2 feet this afternoon, below the flood stage of 36 feet.
Forecasters said the Muskingum River in McConnelsville will drop to flood stage and rise back up to 11.5 feet, just above flood stage, as reservoirs upstream release water. “We expect it will be at that level until Monday,” he said. “It will be just below moderate flood stage, just minor flooding.”
At 11:30 a.m. Thursday, the Ohio River was at 31.7 feet at the Marietta Pumphouse and in Parkersburg the level was 30.9 feet.
Parkersburg Public Works Director Jerry Edman said the flood gate at Point Park had been closed and the pumps along Pond Run have been activated, but Edman doesn’t expect to have to close any more gates.
A Washington County dispatcher said Thursday morning sections of the following roads were covered by water: Ohio 821 to Whipple Street, the intersection of Muskingum River Road and Rainbow Road, lower bridge in Macksburg, Jet Hill Road on the Washington County 9 side, Veto Road just off Braun Road, Ohio 26 at the 10 mile marker, Ohio 26 past Washington County 333, Miller’s Lane near Sand Hill Road and Washington County 333 near Zion Ridge. At 9:45 p.m. dispatchers said the roads were still water-covered.
A rockslide likely caused by recent weather conditions closed Ohio 7, three miles north of Newport, for about an hour Thursday morning. Ohio Department of Transportation workers reported four large boulders, some as large as small cars, fell on the road.
“There are several different factors that could have been involved,” Stephanie Filson, ODOT official, said. “What happens when you have weather that keeps going between cold and then warm is you have a freeze and then a thaw, water gets into the cracks of the rocks and freezes and expands. Then you have a downpour like we’ve had the last few days and the rocks come loose.”
ODOT crews arrived on the scene at 6 a.m. and had the road cleared by 7. However, traffic remains restricted to one lane as the department considers what other work may need to be done.
A team on site determined some of the cleanup and early work could be done by crews already in the district, Filson said.
“There is also a piece that they feel should be excavated and scaled back a little there, so they are looking at potentially a project of some sort that could be contracted,” she said.
For at least a couple of days, two-way traffic will continue on only one lane, with signals in place.
According to local weather watcher Charlie Worsham, this has been the second-wettest March in Washington County since 1963.
On Tuesday, there was 1.17 inches of rainfall in Marietta, breaking a single-day record for March 18 set in 1993. On Wednesday, 1.1 inches of rain fell.
