WAVERLY, Ohio — Two rescue divers were thrown into fast-moving Pike County floodwaters when their boat struck a tree and capsized late Saturday as fire crews raced to reach a manufactured home that a swollen creek had torn from its foundation, ultimately pulling two occupants and their cat to safety by hovercraft, according to the Waverly Fire Department and the Piketon Seal Township Fire Department.
UPDATE (Sept. 13, morning): This story has been updated with additional information from the Waverly Fire Department.
The Waverly Fire Department was first dispatched at 7:56 p.m. Saturday to the 100 block of Woodland Park Road for a water rescue of residents trapped by floodwaters, the department said in a Facebook post. When the department’s water rescue team approached the area, it found several feet of fast-moving water covering U.S. 23, driven by an overflowing creek, and could not safely enter the water to reach the original address.
The team instead attempted a secondary rescue at a residence in the 15000 block of U.S. 23, where two divers launched a small rescue boat, according to the department. The current swept the boat off course and it struck a tree, throwing both divers overboard. Ground personnel threw ropes and pulled both divers from the water without injury, but the boat was carried off by the current and could not be recovered at the time.
Piketon Seal Township Fire Department’s Special Operations Response Team, known as SORT, was requested for mutual aid and reached the U.S. 23 address at about 8:04 p.m. with its hovercraft, Hover 4, according to that department. Crews found a double-wide manufactured home that floodwaters had torn loose and dragged nearly 30 feet from its foundation, with two occupants and a cat still inside and about a foot of water covering the floor.
As the two halves of the home began to pull apart, the hovercraft crew stayed with the occupants because they could not be moved right away, waiting until receding floodwaters allowed ground crews to reach the home roughly 15 minutes later, according to the departments. The residents and their cat were evacuated by fire department pickup truck to the Pike County Sheriff’s Office, where they met with the American Red Cross for further assistance.
Elsewhere, another Waverly Fire Department water rescue crew slowly made its way to homes on Woodland Park Road, accounted for all residents affected by the flooding there, and determined no further rescues were needed, the department said. U.S. 23 remained closed for several hours while the Ohio Department of Transportation completed cleanup.
On Sunday morning, a nearby homeowner found the missing rescue boat and a vehicle in the creek about a quarter-mile downstream, the Waverly Fire Department said. A department crew, with help from the homeowner and a tractor used to lift a large log off the boat, recovered the vessel, which the department said is a total loss.
The Piketon Seal Township Fire Department called the rescue’s rapidly changing conditions “an extremely complex rescue” and credited the Waverly Fire Department, the Pike County Sheriff’s Office, Portsmouth Ambulance and Pebble EMS for their assistance on scene. The Waverly Fire Department said the rescue came amid a stretch of flooding across Pike, Ross and Jackson counties that has been unprecedented, with water in many cases rising too fast for residents to escape on their own within just a few minutes.
The Waverly Fire Department is urging the public never to drive across rushing water, regardless of how shallow it may appear, and asked residents in low-lying areas prone to flooding to remain on high alert before, during and after heavy rainfall.
The information contained in this story was obtained from the Waverly Fire Department and the Piketon Seal Township Fire Department.
