Weekly Photos #011

I don't even know where to start. This whole week was incredibly busy. On Monday I went back to Crawford Street (the street that was hit hardest during last year's floods) and talked to some people regarding the amount of rain we've gotten. Needless to say they were happy the pumps were working and no water had collected in their homes. On Tuesday Alexis and I waited for the jury to come back with a verdict regarding the Wayne Powell case. They did. Guilty on all 11 counts. Let me tell you, there were seven Sheriff's Deputies standing behind this man when Judge Cook read the verdict. That same day I switched stories after the verdict and ended up getting video of Rob Ludeman being voted out of his City Council Presidency and Michael Ashford taking over. Quite a day Tuesday was. On Wednesday Ronnie and I traveled down to Tiffin to cover some of the flooding that took place after this week's terrible rain. We saw homes halfway underwater and a senior center that would've been evacuated had the water risen any higher. On Thursday Bill and I headed downtown to watch the first steps of demolition to make room for the new arena project. They tore down the Subway on Jefferson & Superior. I remember going there for lunch with Lissa when we had to shoot a court story. It's sad to see it go but I have a feeling the new arena will be pretty neat. When Bill and I got back to the station I was getting ready to go to lunch when they asked me if I wanted to go up in a helicopter and fly over Findlay to get more flooding perspective video. I said sure and by 1:30pm Jeff and I were sitting on a runway at Metcalf field in my Jeep, waiting for a helicopter to arrive. I shot some of it with my XDCam and then also brought my personal Sony handheld camcorder with a wide angle lens which ended up being easier to use. We took off from Metcalf and flew down to Bluffton to see more of the flood damage. We then flew back up to Findlay and circled that area to get "Day 2" perspective video. Many people think that after a few days the water will begin to recede but the water level was actually rising from all the outer tributary drainage. It was amazing to fly over these neighborhoods and think of all these families who really have nothing left. Most of these people didn't have flood insurance which makes it that much harder. Whenever there's "high water" in town and we have to drive around it to avoid it, we're just inconvenienced. These poor people's homes are destroyed and they have to start all over. It was very sad. Luckily Flood Aid '07 will help a lot of these people get back on their feet. And finally today, another storm rolled through around 6:20pm and I ended up going to a neighborhood off Alexis Road where a tree had fallen and crushed the front porch of a house. Across the same street part of a tree fell on a power line and the line was sparking and catching the tree on fire. That was pretty interesting to watch and hear. Anywho, enjoy the pics and be sure to check out the six minute video I put together of the helicopter aerials from Thursday.

-T
































Findlay aerials


Here is some video from Friday's bad weather