PANO: Airhead GS survives NW Ohio flooding....

[DougGrosjean]

See far left.

Nice that the whole town of Pemberville, and the Pemberville OH VFD, put all those pumps to work just to save my bike... ;);) Operation was a success, the water didn't get any higher than this. "Lake" is nomally the parking lot behind Pemberville's main business district.

http://photo.net/bboard-uploads/00OOSR-41686984.jpg

[DougGrosjean]

Student volunteers filling sandbags, Pemberville Flood February 2008:

http://photo.net/bboard-uploads/00OOSG-41686684.jpg

[jdmetzger]

Wow, Doug!! I didn't realize it had gotten that bad down there. I did hear some stories about massive ice after we had that thaw, flooding, and subsequent cold snap. Glad to hear the GS survived. :)

[bensonga]

Glad your bike was safe and dry Doug.....I hope the flooding damage wasn't too severe in the rest of the town/area....although it looks bad.

The panoramic photo was perfect way to show the scene. Great shot!

Gary Benson
Eagle River, Alaska

[DougGrosjean]

Josh, Gary;

Thanks for the kind words.

Gary, I know Josh F2F, and I suspect he's been through Pemberville on a few rides. We live just a few towns apart, roughly.

The flood looks worse than it is (was - water has gone now, parking lot is nice and clean), at least for most of the village. Maybe a dozen families had to leave their homes, out of maybe a couple hundred homes in the village. The businesses whose backdoors faced that riverside parking lot, all had water in their basements - but that's happened many times before in that area, as those buildings are all about 120 years old, and a flood like this happens about every 5 years.

I had front row seats, literally. My bike is two stories below my loft apartment bedroom window, so I heard the pumps all night for a few days, and could glance outside to check the water's progress when I worried. The former body shop where the sandbags were being filled is about 2-3 doors down the street. TV crews set up camp in their hi-tech vans for 2-3 days while the water was high. Kinda fun to watch them set up the different shots to make the whole thing more dramatic than it was.

I'd have liked to have taken more pics of the flood effects out in the country and surrounding towns, but detours on my commute due to road closures had me with barely enough light to shoot when I arrived home after work each day.

The b/w pano of the kids filling sandbags.... my son and I were doing that, too. For about 1.5-2.0 hours, and then I'd take some pics with 3200 speed b/w film when I took breaks. Some of the kids were let out of school to fill sandbags and had been doing so all day.

[riderR1150GSAdv]

Phew! That ended well for you and your bike!! Nothing is worse than soggy belongings. I hope everyone else is doing ok up there too.

[dancogan]

Glad to see the bike, and the house it belongs to, were all safe! We didn't hear about the flooding ... or maybe I've been working too hard. Anyway, glad to hear all is safe. :clap