Flooding in Bluffton at Tobias Buckell Online

Journal Entry

Flooding in Bluffton

August 21st 2007 at 8:03 pm

When I said half my town was underwater this morning I wasn’t really kidding. I live about 700 feet from Riley Creek, and the local news has some video footage of the town from above and the Interstate shutdown due to the two days of raining.

Of course that’s nothing like what’s happening to people in Jamaica, Cuba, or Mexico (although the wonderfully enlightened comment of the day from someone was ‘well, they have that sort of thing happening all the time, they’re used to it’ and the winner ‘they have less stuff they’re not as affected’ for just… well… faceplants…).

Bilde [pic via Toledo Blade] Having been through 4 hurricanes, I can say with some authority that this was way less crazy.

Sadly, there was 3-4 feet of water it seemed inside the local grocery store, the Movie Gallery (thank goodness Time Warner has a movie download features to the box now), probably the vet as well.

Main Street (for those of you who’ve visited, that’s the Norman Rockwell section of town with the entire row of US flags) is unaffected. Six houses down my former boss’s house is partially under water.

I spent four hours with a friend walking around marveling at just how high the water had risen, which I guess is being considered the highest here yet. Fortunately no one on the Interstate or around has been hurt, and the EMS and police were doing a great job of getting people to leave their houses that were in the flood zone (500 feed within the Riley Creek) and so on.

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11 Responses so far

1. Jon on Aug 21st, 2007 at 8:49 pm

Holy crap, dude. Glad your house is okay.
2. Josh on Aug 21st, 2007 at 9:21 pm

Great coverage, The blanchard river in Findlay should be cresting at 10 PM tonite.
3. Steve Buchheit on Aug 21st, 2007 at 9:49 pm

Oo, pretty waterfall. Dude, glad it was only your basement. How are the puppies taking it, though?

Yeah, people here have to tear out some drywall, let the frame dryout, and replace if there’s local flooding. In hurricanes people’s neighborhoods, homes and families go missing. I’ve lived through two hurricanes coming on shore near me (when I lived in Southern Jersey). I wasn’t on an island (although SNJ can be compared to a sandbar with pretentions), and I was far from the shore, but it still wasn’t fun. I still laugh when a big thunderstorm is coming through and people stock up on food here.

Now, if you’re right next to the river, or in a valley, flooding can be serious business. As long as you can avoid the waters, you don’t have it bad. In a hurricane, you can’t avoid the waters.
4. Laurie Mann on Aug 21st, 2007 at 10:08 pm

I’m visiting relatives up in Massachusetts where it’s been dry and cool. Jim reports almost constant rain in the Pittsburgh area since I’ve been away. They lost power for a few hours, but haven’t had any flooding as ugly as yours.

I noticed as I drove across Pennsylvania last Saturday that while it was pretty green, most of the rivers were a little low.
5. Betsy Whitt on Aug 21st, 2007 at 11:03 pm

Okay, so apparently one of my good friends from high school is also currently living in Bluffton - I totally didn’t put that together until she sent out an email with her own pictures of the flooding there. Good luck with all that water! We had a lot of trouble with flooding when I lived in Tennessee, but so far we’re high and dry up here in Denver… Good luck keeping to that deadline!
6. Mary Fitz... on Aug 22nd, 2007 at 9:38 am

Too bad you can’t send some of that water down south to Cincy. We are starting to look like the Sahara. I think we have only cut our lawn twice all summer it’s been so dry. We have had hot heavy wet-newspaper colored skys and humid air for weeks, but almost no rain. I was camping in the UP last week (blessed cool weather!), it was dry here before I left, but I was shocked to see how much worse things got in the week I was gone. There is no grass alive in most lawns, even those that get watered, trees are starting to loose leaves, and even the weeds are drying up. We recycle the condensation water from the AC into the vegetable garden, but things are even getting limp there.
7. Wyman Cooke on Aug 24th, 2007 at 8:24 am

I’ve been busy with work, so the first time I learned about rain in your area was when I saw a news article about flooding in Findlay. I thought, ‘Findlay, isn’t that near Bluffton?’ But I didn’t have a map to refer back to. Hope you guys get dried out soon.

Down here we’re on our fourth week without rain. The high Wednesday was 105 F. Set a record. We need rain, but I’m afraid it’ll arrive in buckets when it comes.
8. Steve Buchheit on Aug 24th, 2007 at 8:26 pm

Wyman, it’s the same thing here. Most of the summer we’ve been dry. My trees are so stressed some of them have started dropping leaves. And then, whomp, we’re flooding (well, not me, I’m on high ground).

Hoping Tobias, Emily and the puppies are okay, ’cause the radio reports were sounding pretty bad over there.
9. Tobias Buckell on Aug 27th, 2007 at 1:49 am

Thanks for the thoughts, all, we’re find, I actually spent a lot of time today catching up on cleanup of the basement.
10. neal on Aug 27th, 2007 at 10:27 am

Dear Sir,
Thanks for the story about Bluffton, OH. I have a friend that lives there. I live in IN now, but used to live there for about 7 years. I know about the flooding and Riley creek. I lived on main street right next to that creek. I moved in 2005. My friend lives on Popular st. I guess thats in the south part of town. I want find out if there was flooding there. I wrote to her on e mail but no response. Her elect. is probably off. Her sister lives on main street right above the movie theatre. She’s on the 2nd floor so her apt. is dry. But she probably can’t go anywhere till the water goes away. I guess my ex girlfriend moved over to her sister’s apt. She has some cats and dogs, I guess they went there too. Do you have any information about her street Popular st.? Are you in Toledo or where? Thank you.
Sincerely Neal