Spring is coming, which means more rain is brought to the north, followed by tornado watches and flood warnings across Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, etc. Usually, when it gets rain here, people expect nothing of it, only a few feet of rain adding a few inches of water to the nearby Ohio River. Driving across the river, it is expected to see a low river with boats driving through and people on the water at restaurants, but that’s changed for the worse.
Over the course of three days, April 4-6, it rained non-stop, with freezing temperatures. Along with the rain came terrible winds, forming tornadoes that would touch down in all parts of Ohio and Kentucky, causing power to go out during the night. So caught up in watching the news and tornado warnings, no one has thought to look at the bigger picture.
The Ohio River rose to 60 feet of water, making those bridges seem not too high. Only a couple of feet off the ‘Purple People Bridge’ is brown water at the cliff jumping level. On water restaurants are not accessible due to flooding of the buildings and the short walkway being inclined in the opposite way they should be, facing up.
This happened during multiple schools’ spring breaks. People would be enjoying the 80-degree weather, tanning under the sun with a UV of 11, while getting the worst sunburn of all time and coming back home to the worst flood in 28 years.
This would lead to some people’s houses being flooded after they had the best week in Florida. This could impact a family by power outages causing spoiled food, roads flooded, causing no access to home, and maybe no access to work.
“When we were in Florida on spring break, we were watching the weather forecast and all the rain, so we expected flooding in our area because it has happened before– this is the worst flood we have ever seen in our house, and we have been here for 10 years,” guidance counselor Laura Schnitzler said.
Schnitzler and her family were lucky and took an RV down to Florida and stayed there for a couple of days. When they came back, they knew that both ways to their home were flooded with no way through. They had a place to stay but no warm clothes to wear for the 25-degree weather they would come back home to.
Having to pay for food, clothes, and a lot of gas is expensive on top of a luxury vacation. Her family’s house wasn’t damaged, but some of her neighbors’ houses were. While Schnitzler’s family would have a place to stay during their neighborhood flooding, her neighbors had to evacuate and find a new place to stay in the meantime until the water cleared.
This flood has affected multiple people’s lives, causing them to leave their homes and belongings behind or causing people to stay in and be stuck in their homes because they have no access to the flooded road. This means parents and teens are not able to drive to work, lose money in their paychecks, and have no access to food.
Luckily, they are not alone. The communities donate huge amounts of money to help repair people’s flooded homes and help support them through the setback.
While Cincinnati did put up its floodgates, that did nothing to stop the rain from getting higher and higher, causing a huge amount of unexpected flooding around the tristate. Imagining this flood without the floodgates in place is bone-chilling and could’ve been the biggest flood Cincinnati ever faced.
On iHeartRadio, Tony Cruz and John Gordon, former National Weather Service level directors of Meteorology, talked about the flood and the lives the flood has taken from families and friends.
After Cruz discusses the river flooding can start to move cars either parked or move, Gordon responded with, “I was so upset when I saw that person die down on Bullitt County, Spencer County, from the floodwaters of unknown depths the other night. It happens time and time again.”
As people try to save others from their cars and homes, news channels warn people to stay away from these high waters as it can be risky. And while Cincinnati gets less rain, the river might slowly continue to overflow, but people hope that the flooding will clear out in the next few weeks. In the meantime, stay safe and away from the water.
