WAVERLY, Ohio — A fire department rescue team pulled two people from a manufactured home that was torn loose from its foundation and dragged nearly 30 feet by rising creek floodwaters along U.S. 23 late Saturday, according to the Piketon Seal Township Fire Department.
The department’s Special Operations Response Team, known as SORT, was dispatched at about 8:04 p.m. to the 15000 block of U.S. 23 to assist the Waverly Fire Department with a water rescue, the department said in a Facebook post. Crews arrived to find a double-wide manufactured home being pulled downstream by floodwaters from a nearby creek.
The team deployed its hovercraft, Hover 4, to reach the structure and check for occupants, finding two people inside, the department said. As weather conditions began to improve and floodwaters started to recede, the hovercraft crew stayed with the two occupants — who could not be transported right away — until water levels dropped enough for a vehicle to reach the home.
While remaining with the occupants, the crew found the home had suffered significant structural damage, with the two halves of the double-wide beginning to tear apart, according to the department. Floodwater had reached about a foot deep inside the structure, and once the water receded, crews found the home had shifted roughly 30 feet from its original location.
Crews were able to transport the two occupants from the home to the Pike County Sheriff’s Office, where they met with the American Red Cross for further assistance, the department said.
The rescue came amid a stretch of heavy rain that has brought flash flooding and multiple water rescues to Pike and Ross counties since Sept. 9. The fire department called the call’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 information contained in this story was obtained from the Piketon Seal Township Fire Department.
