Flood expands, but impact not yet as bad as in past

The swollen Ohio River started playing havoc with some neighborhoods throughout Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky Saturday, closing streets, eliciting flood warnings and even rerouting a running race scheduled for this weekend.

And the danger isn't over yet: The river hit 57 feet late Saturday afternoon and the latest forecasts called for a crest at 58 feet sometime Sunday. That would be the river's highest point since the massive flooding of 1997, although the Ohio did hit 55.9 feet in March 2011.

The current forecast would put the Ohio six feet above flood stage, only the fourth time that the river has exceeded flood stage of 52 feet since 2000.

That crest level could go higher depending on how much rainfall areas upstream receive over the next day or so, not to mention the possible snow melt. And given how saturated the ground is, the river could stay above flood stage for several days after cresting.

But the impacts so far appear to be minimized to a few local areas, in stark contrast with other major floods over the last three decades. That's possibly due to an increased awareness by local residents of the dangers as well as more precautions and physical infrastructure in place to deal with such emergencies.

"In 1997, we had no idea that it would be as bad as it was ... and my dad had to trudge through the chest-deep water to come get me because he had gone to work," said Katie Reaves of New Richmond, which was put under a state of emergency by that village council Saturday. "Ever since then, we've never taken any chances. The river would have to hit 60 feet to get to my house now, but I'm still packed up and ready to go just in case."

The New Richmond action allows the village to access state or federal emergency funds in case things get worse or major cleanup is needed. The village also set up an emergency shelter, with at least six homes expected to be affected.

Saturday brought no mandatory evacuations, although there were several voluntary warnings. The worst flooding was expected in New Richmond as well as in Newtown, Newport, California and the East End. Metropolitan Sewer District officials closed two flood gates in Cincinnati this weekend, and Newport closed its gate on the Kentucky side of the river as well. (Covington has yet to close its gate, designed to be used only when the water is much higher than current levels.)

Meanwhile, Heart Association mini-marathon planners scrambled to re-route Sunday morning's race; parts of the scheduled path through Newport's riverfront flooded Saturday.

Cincinnati police closed parts of Mehring Way behind Paul Brown Stadium downtown, although the stadium itself was dry. The Banks, the downtown development facing its first major flood, was still open and accessible Saturday evening.

Areas around Paul Brown Stadium were underwater, but the stadium itself stayed dry. And cities along the Ohio such as Cincinnati, Newport and Covington all closed their flood doors this weekend.

But in years past, such water levels would have had much worse impact. Today's flood controls and forecasting ability certainly didn't exist during the worst recorded flood in the area in 1937, when the river reached 79.9 feet and drove more than 100,000 area residents from their homes.

That includes billions invested in flood walls, levees and even dams and reservoirs in southwest Ohio that can keep tributaries from adding to the flood. Those dams have created lakes and ponds now used for recreation, even though the initial purpose was purely for flood control.

"The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have become much more sophisticated about how they can model and monitor what's going on, and how they release flood waters is much more specific so they can keep the impacts to a minimum," said Fred Craig, vice-president of engineering firm Parsons Brinckerhoff, which oversaw the reconstruction of Fort Washington Way as well as Great American Ball Park in the last 15 years – both of which needed extensive flood protection as well.

Those investments include the Cincinnati flood walls that were closed.

"These floodgates protect a lot of business in Queensgate here," Jeff Oxenham, a senior engineer for MSD, said Thursday night after crews took four hours to shut the gates on Carr Street. "We're being a little cautious, but this is not something we can afford a mistake on. We're looking at technology from the '40s here.

"It works, but it doesn't close as fast as some of the more modern gates," said Oxenham, adding that this was the first time the gates have been closed since 2011. "We practice setting this up every year, to make sure they work and to make sure we know how to do it, but this will be their first use in four years."

In addition, more flood walls and other infrastructure was installed along the Great Miami River as well, helping flooding along that tributary. The Mill Creek, which also flooded in 1937 and actually caused the most damage to Cincinnati, has undergone major flood control measures.

Things have improved even more since 1997, when the river hit 64.7 feet in March of that year. Covington and Newport both renovated their flood walls and gates in the last 7-10 years to ensure their cities were not considered in a flood plain and to protect their business districts.

That came after the Federal Emergency Management Agency required all physical flood control measures to be re-certified and reinspected to make sure they met existing standards. (Cincinnati chose not to fix the Lunken levee on the east side, expanding the flood plain into a large swath of the city on the east side).

The Fort Washington Way reconstruction included a new flood wall designed to protect Interstate 71, as well as a pumping station just in case water did breach the highway.

And there have been numerous buyouts of residential and business structures throughout the area to keep houses and buildings from being flooded repeatedly. That includes a neighborhood along Pleasant Run Creek in Fairfield, which was flooded several times before a major flood on Father's Day in 2003. That led to the infusion of $5.2 million in money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to buy out the houses along the waterway.

"The levels would have to be substantially higher to get to the kind of devastation we saw in 1997 or 1937," Craig said.

But with a two-year old son, and being on call as a registered nurse, Reaves wasn't taking any chances. She took all the insulation out of her basement a few years back, replacing it with styrofoam. She tiled the floors instead of installing carpet "so we can spray it out just in case."

And she has her bags packed in case things turn for the worse.

"I've actually been really surprised at how quickly it has come up today," she said. "But I can see a big difference in how the riverfront looks here. All the new houses are on stilts, and there aren't even any trailers down there anymore by the river. Still, we're pretty tightly knit here, and we're all helping each other get ready."

Enquirer reporter Henry Molski contributed.