The date is August 19th, 2007. Rain begins to fall over the Maumee River watershed... and it doesn't stop.
Over that first 24 hour period, Ottawa recorded a staggering 8.14" of rainfall. But what caused such torrential, non-stop rain? A few days earlier, Tropical Storm Erin made landfall on the Gulf Coast of Texas, then turned towards the Ohio Valley. Moisture packed remnants of the storm met up with a east-west oriented stationary front; essentially trapping all that moisture right over Northwest Ohio. The major recipient was pinpointed to the Blanchard River Valley with Ottawa sitting downstream of it all.
According to a U.S. Geological Survey, an estimated 25 to 50 thousand cubic feet per second was flowing through the Blanchard River at Ottawa. To help you gauge that amount of water, imagine an entire basketball court filled 10 feet high with water, moving through a point every single second.
This historic flood taught future generations how to better prepare and prevent such an event from happening again, but more importantly showed the Village of Ottawa's resiliency and camaraderie with neighboring communities. From clearing log jams to the construction of a Blanchard River diversion project, engineers at the Maumee Valley Conservancy District continue to find ways to alleviate future flooding events before they occur.
