Bellevue residents: Five weeks of freak flooding and no end in sight

BELLEVUE -- Beautiful weather, no river, no stream and yet almost a thousand residents are coping with flood conditions.

For some reason, the earth in Bellevue continues to heave up millions of gallons of water to the surface.

This flooding also hampered firefighters trying to get to a house fire Tuesday just outside Bellevue.

Firefighters had to battle flooded roads as well as flames while responding to the fire.

Fire trucks had to go across a farm field behind the home to reach the property.

By the time they arrived, the fire had spread through the entire house. It took two hours to bring the fire under control and the house was a total loss.

Firefighters say they were lucky just to get their trucks to the house because of the surrounding water.

Against gravity and against logic, the flooding continues day after day. Homes and barns suddenly turned into islands trapped in muddy water.

No one knows why it began or when it will end. It is a disaster for every homeowner for miles around Bellevue. The residents north of town on state route 269 have especially been hit hard.

Mike Willis and his wife, Deb, are exhausted from battling the flood waters in their home.

"It's been 24/ 7 of filling the pumps with gasoline every two hours," Willis said. "It's been our worst nightmare."

A few hundred yards down the road, Lenora Adams has a stack of sandbags around her house.

"Right now it's like we're just maintaining," Adams said. "There is not much else we can do but keep fighting."

Neighbors need boots just to walk next door. The sump pumps in many basements are barely staying ahead of the upwelling flood waters.

Dean Instone has already lost the battle. The wooden stairs to his basement are now floating in six feet of water. Dean and his wife have been forced to live with family members in Bowling Green, Ohio. He returns every day to check on his home.

"It's not good," Instone said. "It's been really tough for my wife. She's in bad shape.

"I'm waiting for my basement walls to collapse any day now."

Neighbors have volunteered the use of heavy equipment to try and dig a channel in the backyard fields that have become muddy lakes. So far, nothing has worked.

Because there are no lakes, rivers or streams nearby, none of the residents have flood insurance.

Scientists believe that underground artesian springs in the area normally drain toward Sandusky Bay and Lake Erie. There are large artesian springs at Miller's Pond, Green Spring, and Castalia, Ohio.

Affected residents suspect that someone who lives north of Bellevue on State Route 269 might have plugged up sink holes that allow the artesian water to vent naturally toward Lake Erie.

Mike Willis says he and his neighbors are getting angry that the disaster has not gotten the attention of anyone at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources of any other state agency.

"Tell them to get here and take a look at what we're dealing with day after day after day" demanded Willis.

"I've already lost about $17,000 in wages and expenses to keep this water from flooding my home" he added. "Some of my neighbor's homes are destroyed. Why isn't anybody here to help us?"