Story and photos by Amy Eddings
Flooding on the western grounds of Ohio Northern University has been so severe, Ada village officials have had to bring in two pumps from Cleveland to help drain the area.
The problem is the stormwater retention pond that’s situated east of the soccer field. It’s so swollen with rainwater from the weekend’s drenching storms that it overflowed its banks, spilling into Mirror Lake to the south and washing out much of the “green monster” exercise track that passes nearby.
“You get up in the bleachers of the [Dial-Roberson] stadium and look down, and it looks like one big lake,” Village Assistant Administrator Jamie Hall told members of the Ada Area Chamber of Commerce this morning.
Officials with ONU and the village had already set up a four-inch pump, owned by the university, to draw water out of the retention pond. The pump handles 600 to 700 gallons a minute, said Hall. But it wasn’t doing the trick.
"We were not getting ahead of it,” Hall said.
He said the village has rented two six-inch pumps from a company in Cleveland with the power to handle 1,200 to 1,300 gallons a minute. While the flooding is on ONU property, Hall told the Icon “it’s for the benefit of both entities to get the water moved."
He said the pumps are directing the water toward a catch basin on West Lincoln Avenue, near the campus’ King Horn Sports Center. From there, the water drains into Grass Run Creek, which feeds into Hog Creek, which spills into the Ottawa River, which takes the water into an also-inundated Lima. Sgt. Chris Sprouse of the Lima Police Department told The Lima News that as many as 11 motorists were stranded in floodwaters on Tuesday. All of the trapped drivers were rescued, he said.
Hall told chamber members that the flooding began Saturday night, when thunderstorms from the leading edge of Tropical Storm Bill in the Gulf of Mexico dumped an estimated four to six inches of rain overnight.
“That’s when Grass Run Creek came out of its banks,” he said. The creek winds around Township Road 55, to the east of the village, and is the main catch system for the village’s storm runoff. With the creek filled to the brim, the runoff had nowhere to go and pooled in basements, yards, fields and streets.
“We had water where we had never seen water before,” said Hall. He meant West Lima Avenue, along ONU’s southern perimeter. Cars were seen there on Sunday slowly plowing through at least a foot of water. West Lima Avenue remains closed near Christopher Circle.
Relief is not yet in sight. Heavy rain is forecast for Thursday, with thunderstorms through the weekend.
