FINDLAY, Ohio — Findlay officials are preparing for potential flooding — more than the city has seen in years.
This will be the most water to pass through the Blanchard River watershed in quite some time. With the combined snowpack melting followed by rain, Findlay leaders watched as the river continued to slowly creep up its banks Thursday.
The last time the river got this high, Main Street saw water spilling onto the road. However, city officials are expecting a different outcome after years of flood mitigation efforts have been completed.
"We don't expect water to go across Main Street until over 16 feet plus, and it's kind of a range, each flood event is a little bit different. But, we're right now not expecting any impact to main street businesses," Findlay Mayor Christina Muryn said.
However, Muryn said the city and county will be watching this event very closely, as it will be the first real stress test of the river benching project that was engineered to lower flood water here by a foot.
Soon, a second round of benching will lower those flood levels even more.
"We're excited to kind of see at what level we start seeing the impact from the benching, because we haven't had storm events, which is great, we would much rather not have them. But, this will give us a little more data on kind of how those are benefiting in the storm events," Muryn said.
As of 7 a.m. of Friday, Feb. 18, the crest projection of the Blanchard River is 13.5 but trending below that according to a Tweet from the City of Findlay: