LOVELAND, OHIO NEWS - Cleaning flood waters

LOVELAND, OHIO NEWS - Public Works crews from Hamilton County and Loveland used heavy equipment, street sweepers, and fire hoses to clear drains and mud from E. Kemper Road Thursday morning. In the photo is a Loveland crew washing mud from E. Kemper Road around 11 AM. Flood water on parts of E. Kemper had been 6.5 feet deep during the worst of the flooding on Wednesday.

There are arguments around town about the river's rise. Many had not seen the river so high, and not seen State Route 48 with water over it in ten years. And, many had never seen so much water in Nisbet Park. It seemed that just as the river is so unpredictable in rising, so is the nature of where it chooses to flood the deepest. Small things like a change of the elevation of a ten foot section of the dike in Nisbet Park can either hold back water, or let it flow freely to different sections of Downtown. Much also depends on the timing of water heading to downtown from O'Bannon Creek and whether or not the creek's rise, beats the rising Little Miami. If the Little Miami rises first, it dams O'Bannon Creek from emptying, and there is significant flooding from the smaller stream - as it must wait for the Little Miami level to go down before it too can empty.

O'Bannon Creek is a small stream, however it can carry a large volume of water very rapidly into downtown Loveland from Goshen Township. The stream enter the Little Miami at Nisbet Park. The stream is about twenty miles long, and many may know it as the beautiful stream through Long Branch Farm which is operated by the Cincinnati Nature Center. John O'Bannon was Clermont County's first surveyor, and Miami township was originally named O'Bannon Township, but was later changed to honor the tribe of Indians, "who once controlled the area," according to history provided by the Clermont County web site.