Wall of Water Devastates Ohio Town; 11 Dead

The death toll reached 11, and about 50 more people were missing and feared dead Friday after a flash flood roared through parts of this Ohio river town.

A wall of water up to 15 feet high, fed by a sudden, drenching thunderstorm Thursday night, carried away scores of houses and mobile homes, tossed cars around like toys and snapped power poles.

Property damage was estimated at “millions and millions of dollars” by Dick Quinlin, the Belmont County disaster coordinator.

The thunderstorms caused widespread flooding in Ohio, West Virginia and western Pennsylvania. But no area was hit harder than this town of 4,300, where two Ohio River tributaries turned into raging torrents virtually without warning.

Ten bodies were taken to the Bauknecht Funeral Home in Shadyside, said Bob Bell, funeral director. One body was taken to Bellaire City Hospital, he said. Chuck Vogt, Belmont County coroner’s investigator, also said there were 11 confirmed dead.

Earlier, Shadyside Fire Chief Mark Badia had said 14 adults and two children were dead. The names of the victims have not been released.

Alan Hans, who was lying on the floor of his trailer Thursday night, heard a tree branch crack like a rifle shot. He rushed outside.

“It was like a tidal wave come down through here,” Hans said, recalling how his trailer was washed down Wegee Creek as he scrambled to high ground.

Ten yards away, the mobile home of Hans’ friend, Warren (Buzzie) Carpenter, was still standing although a shed and his motorcycle were swept away in the roaring waters.

“We grabbed our kids and took off--we’re lucky,” Carpenter said.

Hans was one of 80 people who lost their homes but somehow managed to survive the worst flooding anyone could remember here.

A 9-year-old girl, swept down seven miles of a raging creek, clung to floating lumber and scrambled out of the water as it joined the Ohio River.

Ruth Ann Smith, 54, came home to find that her home had disappeared with everything in it.

Standing with muddy sneakers, shorts and a polo shirt, she said: “I have what I have on. . . . I don’t know what I’m going to do. I was getting ready to retire, and now, this.”

Ronald Tipton said his son, Ronald Jr., his wife, Rhonda, and their two children were thrown out of their mobile home and into their yard by a wall of water.

“They all hung onto a tree,” Tipton said. “The 1-year-old went down once, but they grabbed her by the head and pulled her up.”

Tipton’s sister, who did not give her name, shed tears as she said: “My son and his wife lost everything--their only child.”

Rescuers pulled people from three cars in Wegee Creek, which flows through Shadyside and into the Ohio River, Badia said.

“I don’t know how to describe it. . . . You’ve got to see it to believe it,” Badia said.

More than 5 1/2 inches of rain fell between 7:30 p.m. and 11 p.m. About 80 buildings were damaged, Quinlin said. Many residents came to Jefferson Elementary School, the emergency command and relief center, seeking the fate of missing persons. As some families were reunited, others scanned a list of those still missing.

Hot food was served at the school, while clergy and psychologists tried to console the bereaved families. Clothing and bedding were provided to the newly homeless, and volunteers arrived by the dozens from nearby communities.

Linda Shaver, a volunteer who directed the work at the school, said the survivors had been “very stoic” about their loss.

Federal and state agencies declared the region a disaster area, making it eligible for emergency assistance, and National Guard troops arrived to help in the massive cleanup operation.

There was no complete accounting of deaths, said Karen Bovek, a spokeswoman at the Shadyside Fire Department.

“You’re talking miles and miles of country roads that haven’t been gotten to yet,” she said. “It’s a disaster here.”

Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), who toured the worst-hit Shadyside area along with his colleague, Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio), shook his head sadly.

“The economic loss is tremendous, and we can help with that,” Metzenbaum said. “But the human tragedy is greater and, regrettably, there is nothing we can do about that.”

Gov. Richard F. Celeste, who flew over the hilly region in eastern Ohio, told reporters that “the valleys are choked with debris. A wall of water wiped a path through the area.”

The Shadyside area was drenched with five inches of rain in less than five hours before the flooding swept away houses and cars.

The 3 K’s bar, with customers inside, was hit by the rising creek and rocked from its foundations. The home of its owner was carried half a mile down the river, but he managed to cling to a tree and survive.

One man was found later clinging to a bar stool, said state Sen. Robert Ney, whose district includes Shadyside.

“I’ve never seen anything of this magnitude. There was no warning,” Ney said.

“It came down like a wall of water, 10 to 15 feet high,” said Ronald E. Palmer, who watched the creek roar by with houses and trailers carried along like bobbing corks.

William Dunfee, searching the muddy Wegee Road area for his belongings, told a reporter: “I lost my house, my barn, my horses, everything.”

Dunfee said he just got back to work after a four-year layoff and felt his life was improving. “I’ll take it one day at a time,” he said.

Despite the mass misery in Shadyside, some of the survivors of the flood saw a bright note.

“Maybe it will bring some jobs in this area now,” Buzzie Carpenter said. “A lot of houses are going to need to be rebuilt.”

The community, hit hard by an industrial decline in the Ohio Valley, often experiences flooding, but usually creeks overflow their banks without causing much damage.

This time it was different.

Residents of Shadyside and the nearby city of Bellaire rallied to the aid of the flood victims with cash donations, offers of temporary housing and aid in the messy cleanup task.

Before noon, Citizens’ National Bank of Shadyside had set up a flood relief fund, and the IGA grocery had put up a sign urging contributions. Teen-agers quickly offered to wash cars for $10 apiece and give the proceeds to the flood victims. A charity concert was scheduled as well.

Shaver, the volunteer worker at the school, noted the well-run food service and the temporary cots set up in the hallways. “It seems like we rehearsed it--it’s been so well-organized,” she said.

In a classroom set aside for use as a chapel, someone had written on the blackboard a few suggestions.

“Pray for: Missing. Families. Rescue Workers. Thank God for Life. Volunteers. Gifts of Love.”

There also was flooding in central Ohio, northwestern West Virginia and western Pennsylvania.

“It’s a pretty good mess, especially in the northern end of the county,” said Clarence Weston, a dispatcher with the Marshall County Sheriff’s Department in Moundsville, W. Va. “We had 3.5 inches of rain in a two-hour period last night.”

Most of the problems in West Virginia were confined to road closures and basement flooding.

At least 25 people were evacuated during the night in the Pittsburgh, Pa., suburb of Etna, where some homes had up to five feet of water in their basements, said Borough Manager Bill Skertich. They returned to their homes Friday.

Landslides were reported in the Pittsburgh area, and many city streets were closed during the storm.

The flooding was more serious in Licking County, Ohio. Wayne Tresemer, the county’s disaster services director, said water was standing up to five feet deep in some streets in the town of Newark, and the fire department and other agencies used boats to evacuate some residents.

Two inches of rain caused flooding in Franklin County in central Ohio and 3 3/4 inches of rain was dumped on Holmes County in north-central Ohio, the National Weather Service said.

In Jefferson County, just north of Belmont County in the eastern part of the state, 50 to 60 residents were evacuated in Adena, where water was six to eight feet deep in streets because of creek flooding.

Floodwaters in most areas had subsided by Friday night, according to authorities.