ASHLAND — Suddenly the newsroom police scanners lit up, spitting out dispatches nonstop.
Flash flood bearing down on Mohican campgrounds. Campers being evacuated from Mohican State Park. Calls for river rescue. Roads washed out. Stranded motorists. Red Cross summoned to set up emergency shelters.
A few hours passed and things went from bad to worse. A tornado swept from Pleasant Hill Lake through Clear Fork Valley, cutting a swath into Mohican-Memorial State Forest.
It was all hands on deck for first responders. And for the Times-Gazette staff — every reporter and photographer available. Even the copy editors.
That was 20 years ago, July 10, 2006. It was a Monday afternoon.
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Flash flooding undermined pavement along Wally Road. 
A view from SR 39 between Perrysville and Loudonville shows the extent of erosion from the gravel pit all the way to the edge of the road. 
One of two culverts washed out by floodwaters at Mohican Adventures Campground by the July 10, 2006 flash flood. They had recently been built and would be replaced with sturdier culverts. 
A gravel pit near SR 39 between Perrysville and Loudonville washed out all the way to the edge of the pavement, leaving a dropoff of about 20 feet.
The timing proved to be a blessing. Had the flash flood occurred in the middle of the night, hundreds — if not thousands — of campers would have been asleep in their tents and RVs.
The death toll could have been staggering.
No one in Ashland County died as a direct result of the tornado and flash flood — which was triggered by 7.5 inches of rain in less than two hours. More in some spots. Most of it fell between Pleasant Hill Dam and State Route 3 south of Loudonville. On July 12, 2006, another round of thunderstorms brought additional flooding.
A week later, a canoeing mishap on Clear Fork of the Mohican River claimed the life of an Indiana woman. The previous week’s weather events set the stage for her tragic death.
Our role as journalists
As floodwaters surged through Clear Fork Gorge, Pine Run and other Mohican River tributaries, the news staff went into disaster mode at the Times-Gazette and our sister publication, the Loudonville Times. As did our colleagues at newspapers in surrounding counties.
Had that not been the case, had there not been local papers and competition among news outlets, there would be no detailed history, no meaningful record of the flash flood and tornado of July 2006. And of the horrific disaster that almost was.
We were invested in our community. Because we were very much a part of Ashland County and Mohican Country. In fact, the editors of the Times-Gazette and Loudonville Times, Ted Daniels and Jim Brewer, had homes in the epicenter of the disaster. Pine Run Valley and Mohican State Forest respectively.
In today’s world, with no local newsrooms, skeleton news staffs working remotely and out-of-state ownership, most of this history would never have been recorded. Furthermore, up-to-the-minute, vital information following the events of July 10, 2006, would not have been readily available. Things like road closures, where to go for assistance and, most importantly, reliable information to quell rumors. Including one that Pleasant Hill Dam had been compromised.
The story
The following is a summary compiled from news clippings and op-ed pieces published in the Ashland Times-Gazette and Loudonville Times.
As I reported July 11, 2006, in the Times-Gazette, “The Mohican River rose so fast that campers at Mohican State Park and other Loudonville area campgrounds were forced to abandon their vehicles and belongings and ride canoe livery buses to an evacuation center at Kettering-Samaritan Health Center. Which quickly reached capacity. The Red Cross set up a second evacuation shelter in the Loudonville High School gym. Food and beverages were brought in and a play area set up for children. Red Cross volunteers kept evacuees abreast of developments and accommodated those with special needs.”
“Ashland County Red Cross executive director Georgene Aber announced that the water was rising about a foot an hour.
“Mohican State Park secretary Rebecca Russell said campground evacuations began there about 6 p.m. That included all 25 cabins and three camper cabins at the Class A campground and cabin area south of Loudonville, which were booked at the time, along with all campsites. The Class B campground area was also evacuated.”
As later reported by Jim Brewer, editor of the Loudonville Times, “Loudonville High Principal Ben Blubaugh was pulled out of Monday’s Loudonville-Perrysville School Board meeting to perform special emergency duty. He supervised the use of the Loudonville High School gym as an emergency shelter for evacuees from area campgrounds, the overflow from Kettering-Samaritan Health Center.”
About 600 campers were evacuated from the state park alone. Others came from private campgrounds.
(What wasn’t reported was that some Mohican State Park campers — unaware of the degree of danger — tried to hide from park rangers to avoid being evacuated.)
According to one witness, a tree had fallen on a trailer in the park, trapping the occupants. Other campers managed to get the tree off of them. Flooding intensified downstream, where hundreds of people were staying at private campgrounds.
As further reported in the Times-Gazette, “Waters continued to rise along Wally Road, forcing the county to close it just before 9 p.m. Campers and residents evacuating from downstream locations were directed to back roads into Loudonville.”
Wolf Run (Pine Run) Gristmill, which is part of Mohican State Park, also sustained major damage. Mark Smith, president and founder of the Friends of Wolf Creek Mill Museum was at home in Norwalk when the flash flood hit.
“A neighbor called and said the mill was flooding and he was going to get his truck to
pull my 35-foot camper to higher ground,” Smith said. “I told him I’d head that way. He
called 20 minutes later and said my camper was gone.
“Trying to get to the mill was difficult with all the flooding. After an hour on back roads
driving through flood waters I finally got there. The water was about five feet deep from
the road to the hill behind the mill. We finally spotted my camper and the band stage in
the woods about a half mile north of the mill. There was nothing else we could do that
night.”
Cleanup began the next day.
“The southwest corner of the mill sustained major damage,” Smith said. “The flooding
had washed a large area out from under the foundation. We lost several large
millstones that had been in front of the mill and other artifacts that were on display on
the grounds.”
Once the foundation was shored up, cleanup began.
“Volunteers showed up to help, even some who had never been there before,” Smith
said. “Some worked for many days. Folks brought food, money, equipment, tools,
friends, anything they could think of to help. It took weeks, months to get things close to back to normal. The outpouring of help truly restored my faith in mankind.”
More reports came in that several outbuildings had been destroyed by what was later determined to be an F1 tornado. State Routes, county and township roads were closed due to high water, mudslides and washouts.
Canoeing mishap
A week after the flash flood and tornado, an Indiana couple launched a canoe from Campground B on Clear Fork. On what is arguably the most unforgiving section of the Mohican River Watershed, high winds and possibly the tornado itself had dropped trees into the river.
Kara McCue, 21, became trapped in a strainer — a term used to describe submerged trees and other obstacles. She tragically drowned. According to Times-Gazette and Loudonville Times reports by Jim Brewer, Kara’s husband, Luke McCue, 23, tried in vain to rescue her.
River conditions made recovery efforts difficult.
“The Loudonville Emergency Squad used a rescue boat to power its way upstream from the Class A campground but going was very slow against the swift current,” Brewer wrote. “Rescue team members on foot reported suffering from heat exhaustion due to temperatures in the low 90s and high humidity.”
The gates upstream at Pleasant Hill Dam were closed to reduce the flow and aid in the recovery of Kara McCue’s body.
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Storm hit close to home for T-G editor
Ted Daniels has always referred to the Mohican area as “God’s Country.” He grew up there. His family farm sits along the banks of Pine Run, which bore the brunt of the flood damage. The 55-acre farm served as a retreat for him, his wife Kathy, and other family members. Once a year, it served as a gathering place for current and former Times-Gazette staffers who attended what Daniels dubbed “Farmfest.”
“Fed by 10 inches of rain in a couple hours, the tranquil Pine Run wreaked major havoc throughout the valley Monday afternoon,” Daniels wrote in a July 15, 2006, editorial. “Kathy was down there Monday afternoon getting ready to entertain friends that evening when the rains came.”
(The National Weather Service officially listed the rainfall amount that caused the flash flood at 7.5 inches, but local residents reported even higher amounts on their rain gauges.)
“Literally within minutes, the trailer and her car were on an island,” Daniels wrote. “She waded through nearly two feet of water with her purse and dog in her arms. Twenty minutes later, she calls from the house (on higher ground) saying her car has floated away. Another twenty minutes later, she calls saying the trailer has been swept 100 yards down the field.
“It was surreal. Compared to some of our neighbors, we were lucky.
“As I walked along the creek banks Tuesday after the waters receded, I was awed by the sheer power of those raging waters. The landscape was eerily unfamiliar. Big trees that had been there yesterday were gone. The sandstone cliff wall was scoured clean of vegetation eight feet high.
“We’ve experienced the humbling kindness and compassion of neighbors, coworkers, friends and family. But I must admit I’m still a bit unsettled what what’s transpired in a place I always equated with peace.
“Perhaps my mother, Ruth Daniels, who has traversed Pine Run Valley virtually all of her 88 years, said it best, ‘Well, in a place like this, I suppose you’ve got to expect these kinds of things are going to happen every once in a while. Even in God’s Country’.”
Not the perfect storm for campground and canoe livery owners
The July 10 flash flood and tornado — combined with heavy rains before and after — made for what is commonly known as “the perfect storm.”
For canoe livery and campground owners reeling in the aftermath, it proved to be a less-than-perfect storm. According to one estimate, they sustained more than $1million in damage and lost business. Little of it was covered by insurance or government funding. Reports indicated that none of it covered loss of business.
Mohican Country’s recreational tourism businesses are spread over three counties, Ashland, Holmes and Knox. Four if you count Richland County. That meant they’d have to turn to their individual county governments for assistance. Which failed to materialize because the damage in each jurisdiction did not amount to levels necessary to trigger government aid.
Mohican tourism trailblazers demonstrated perseverance
Doug Shannon had been around long enough to know that, when the going gets tough, it’s not enough just to roll with the punches; you have to roll up your sleeves, clean up the mess and rebuild.
He and his wife, Patty, owned Mohican Adventures Campground and Canoe Livery at the time of the flash flood. They had been instrumental in developing Loudonville’s first canoe livery, which Dick Frye established in 1961.
Ironically, Doug Shannon entered the picture in 1969, when Frye hired him to help clean up in the aftermath of the July 4 flood. Shannon was a teenager at the time.
Floodwaters from the July 10, 2006, downpour surged through the Mohican Adventures Campground, taking out two culverts.
“We had just put the culverts in that year for a bike trail and to get to the other side of our campground,” Shannon said.
They rebuilt the culverts, making them stronger.
The creek running through the campground had risen quickly. The floodwaters surged with such force that, on the other side of State Route 3 where it empties into Black Fork near what is now River Run Canoe Livery, the normally tranquil stream carved out a big chunk of the riverbank.
Mohican Adventures staff evacuated the back part of the campground, where the primitive campsites were.
“The rest of the campground was high enough that people could get in and out,” Shannon said.
Paddlers using Mohican Adventures watercraft and boats from other liveries suddenly found themselves in harm’s way as the Mohican River swelled.
Mohican Adventures employees manned canoe livery buses and headed down Wally Road, where the surge from Pine Run, Clear Fork, and other tributaries was inundating the mainstream of the Mohican River.
“We had a bunch of people on the river,” Shannon said. “It was like a wave of water coming at them. We went down Wally Road and just started plucking people out of boats on the river. It didn’t matter what livery they were with. We put them on a bus and got them back to where they belonged.”
Livery employees pulled the boats out and put them on higher ground.
“Some of the canoes floated away and we had to retrieve them later,” he said. “We managed to find all of them.”
Logs and other storm debris plugged up the river.
“We had to go out and clean all that up before we could run canoes,” Shannon said. “I would guess it took about a week.”
The liveries and campgrounds lost business, but campers and paddlers soon returned to Mohican Country.
“We just went back to normal,” Shannon said. “Things dried out and we did some maintenance — different maintenance — to keep it from happening again.”
The story continues below the photos.
Flash flood of 2006 – You couldn’t get there from here
The route to recovery was convoluted — literally and figuratively. Most of the road, bridge and culvert damage was repaired in a matter of weeks, but getting around the washed-out river valleys required a lot of circumnavigation.
Similarly, cleanup and repairs required state, county, village and township officials to circumnavigate bureaucracy and coordinate their efforts. Several townships sustained infrastructure damage, but Hanover Township in Ashland County was hit hardest. Particularly along the Pine Run corridor.
“It may take weeks to make many of the repairs, especially to area roads,” the late Crystal Hatfield wrote in a July 14, 2006, Times-Gazette op-ed piece. “There is no doubt the recovery process will be costly for the county and townships, especially Hanover Township.
“As of Wednesday evening, Hanover Township had seven roads closed for repairs. In addition, three county roads and two state routes in Ashland County were closed because of infrastructure damage.
“In the hardest hit area, State Route 3 will be closed two to three weeks between State Route 97 and the Knox County line to make repairs to a bridge over Pine Run. A key section of Wally Road, which is a main artery for Mohican area tourism, likely will be closed between State Route 3 and Spellacy for at least two weeks.”
Road damage also occurred between Loudonville and Perrysville and in the Pleasant Hill Lake area. State Route 39 was closed south of Perrysville after a gravel pit washed out all the way to the road, leaving a sheer drop of about 20 feet. State Route 60 was also closed for a while.
Thanks to coordinated efforts among political subdivisions and proactive tourism interests — including the Wally Road Scenic Byway Association — most of the roads reopened sooner than expected.
Campground and livery owners absorbed losses and rebounded quickly
With little prospect of government funding for damage, area business owners and tourism boosters focused on bringing tourists back as quickly as possible.
“The first step in developing a universal response to the Mohican area recreation businesses suffering from flood damage is to let perspective visitors know the area is open again,” Loudonville Times editor Brewer wrote.
In an op-ed piece published July 22, 2006, Brewer quoted Ohio Department of Travel and Tourism deputy director Steve Greenhaige and Jerrilynn Leckrone of the Loudonville-Mohican Area Chamber of Commerce.
“Our plan is to work with the Wally Road Scenic Byway Association and convention and visitors’ bureaus in the three affected counties and through our 1-800-BUCKEYE tourism hotline to get the word out,” Greenhaige told Brewer.
In an article published the previous day, Brewer reported that state officials had visited the area July 20, 2006, touring recreational businesses. The late Bill Conrad, a longtime advocate of the Mohican River and Wally Road corridor, coordinated the visit.
“My motivation in arranging this tour was to help shake off the attitude of gloom and doom shared by some of the recreational business owners who suffered substantial damage in the flood,” Conrad said.
He indicated that — because multiple county jurisdictions were involved and damage amounts fell short of thresholds to trigger government financial relief — the state might be willing to provide marketing assistance.
Which it did — in conjunction with the local chamber of commerce and convention and visitors’ bureau. And it worked.
“Not only are vacationers returning in droves, but many first-time visitors are showing up,” Leckrone said.
Mohican Tourism Pioneer Ken Wobbecke put it all in perspective
In the aftermath of the flooding, Times-Gazette photographer Liz Hosfeld and I headed downstream to capture images and interview Wally Road campground owners.
It wasn’t a matter of simply driving down State Route 3 and Wally Road. The roads in low-lying areas were still impassible, either blocked by mud and debris or badly damaged.
To wend our way to the downstream campgrounds, we borrowed Annette McCormick and her Ford Explorer. A late ’90s model, it was an underpowered and lumbering beast. But, with four-wheel drive, a solid frame and high ground clearance, the Explorer was more than equal to the task. McCormick’s mountain biking experience came in handy because she was familiar with the backroads — few of which were paved and some marginally passable in the best of times.
We ultimately made our way to Mohican Wilderness, the southernmost of Wally Road’s privately owned campgrounds. There we had the good fortune to run into the late Ken Wobbecke, a visionary who purchased farmland along the Mohican in the 1960s with a dream of making it a campground. He was also instrumental in obtaining scenic river designation for the Mohican and scenic byway status for Wally Road.
The Explorer rolled to a stop at the Mohican Wilderness canoe landing. Amid the devastation stood Wobbecke. There was something incongruous about his presence there, incongruous in a good way.
The cable pedestrian bridge he had built lay in ruins. A five-foot cube of concrete that anchored it into the riverbank near the landing had heaved from the ground under the strain of floating debris on the deck and cables, which were partially shredded. Sleeping bags, tents, towels and clothing were twisted around trees, the ground littered with mud and campers’ personal effects. The picnic tables that hadn’t washed downstream were overturned and strewn about.
Yet Wobbecke looked none the worse for wear. Nor overly concerned.
We’d heard plenty of pessimism from other campground and canoe livery owners. Wobbecke rose above all that. In so doing, he personified the spirit that ultimately carried the day.
His response?
“We’ll get it cleaned up, the sun will shine, everything will dry out,” he said with a reassured grin. “Things will be fine.”
“And the cable bridge?” I asked.
“We’ll have it replaced by next season,” he replied.
And they did. He was right. Things turned out fine. Mohican was better than ever.
Times-Gazette reporters Darcie Loreno, Megan Edwards and Andrew Waldman also contributed to these stories and excerpts from their reporting were used. Special thanks to photographers, copy editors and others who were involved but did not receive direct credit in this account. That includes the folks in the front office, layout, circulation and advertising. During crisis situations, these people went out of their way to pass along valuable information to the editorial staff, serving as our eyes and ears, catching important details we might have missed.
A salute to our colleagues from newspapers in neighboring counties who covered these events. Reporting on natural disasters on your home turf is challenging enough — but it’s even harder when you find yourself operating on remote and unfamiliar terrain and having to seek out reliable sources. As for television and other “news outlets” from Cleveland, Columbus and other big city markets who came here to “report” — next time stay home.
Thanks also to Source Media for demonstrating dedication to the community, for providing a venue for this article and preserving the history of the Mohican flash flood and tornado of July 10, 2006.
Knox Community Hospital proudly supports the vibrant pulse of our community by sponsoring the Life & Culture section on Knox Pages, celebrating the stories and experiences that make our region unique.
