McConnelsville Recovering From Major Creek Flooding

McCONNELSVILLE, Ohio – Residents along the tributaries of Bell Creek in McConnelsville have experienced multiple rounds of flooding as a result of the recent storms that have swept through the area.

McConnelsville Village Administrator Tim Louis shared how the village is dealing with the aftermath of multiple violent storms.

“Yeah, we’ve had multiple rains here in the last month-and-a-half that have put the water over top of the riverbanks and coming into houses repeatedly,” Louis said. “So it hasn’t just happened one time, I think we’re borderline four times now, almost five. And you know each time it happens there’s 10 to 20 homes that are affected. Some have been condemned. I think around 6-to-8 houses have been condemned. Right now, we’re just trying to deal with the flooding and the clean-up of it.”

A severe storm that arrived late in the evening on September 9th, brought torrential rain that forced midnight evacuations. Many residents agree that the little creek along Brookside Drive became as violent as they’ve ever seen it.

“We’ve had some sanitary sewer issues,” Louis said. “Right now we’ve had some… we have sanitary sewer lines that are suspended in air. We’re trying to keep them up as best we can and trying to find the proper procedure to go ahead and get these replaced or get them on the engineering list so that we can get them replaced. Just the proper procedures and documentation for it.”

The natural disasters that multiple communities throughout Southeastern Ohio have experienced during the past couple of months share the common practice of local Emergency Management Agencies reaching out to the State EMA before gaining status by the governor to become eligible for federal funding.