Here we are in March of 2009 and we are flooding again, thankfully the river seems to be receding at the moment.
As you can see in the right hand column, we have put OttawaFlood on twitter.com at www.twitter.com/ottawaflood
try it out, and send us any info you have that it pertinent. It funnels directly into the main web page at www.OttawaFlood.com and here on the blog on the right column and also, obviously on twitter.com
Thank you,
OttawaFlood.com
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
Flooding in February 2009
Here we are again looking and watching the river. Since the major flood in August of 2007, one really important piece of equipment has been replaced, and that is the automatic reporting river guage near the railroad track bridge, in Ottawa, Ohio. It used to not be automatic.
Why is this so important? Because you can go online at anytime and see what the river was really doing. If you look to the right in the sidebar, you can see I have posted links to the riverguages. You can look at them individually as the go upstream from Ottawa on the National Weather Service webpages or you can look at them all combined. I find the graphs to be most useful.
Take a look at them and let's hope that we reached the peak of the water level while I am posting this post.
Very Best,
Steve Teffenhardt
www.OttawaFlood.com
Why is this so important? Because you can go online at anytime and see what the river was really doing. If you look to the right in the sidebar, you can see I have posted links to the riverguages. You can look at them individually as the go upstream from Ottawa on the National Weather Service webpages or you can look at them all combined. I find the graphs to be most useful.
Take a look at them and let's hope that we reached the peak of the water level while I am posting this post.
Very Best,
Steve Teffenhardt
www.OttawaFlood.com
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Interesting Flood "Mashup" for Global Warming/Ice Melt
In an attempt to figure out how we could better visualize oncoming floods, I am pursuing the task of figuring out if there would be some way to do a Flood Mashup.
There are some limited applications on the Internet that address sea level change and how it would affect the coastal regions.
To get an idea of what a Mashup is on the net, goto this link:
I think of Mashups on the internet as just a way to take information or data sources on the internet and put them together (i.e. mash up) to represent things in another way. If you are familiar with Google Earth, this is a huge mashup of data from millions and millions of sources.
I would like to attempt to figure out a way to view flood levels in a dynamic (dynamic in the way of changing altitude and river flood level over an area) river valley setting.
To present this in as close to a possible real time dimension in a graphic way. Now, this would be nearly impossible to do with extreme accuracy because you will never know when a log or ice jam or some other impediment would be working against you, in a certain area, but it could help in a general way to keep people vigilant during flooding events along a river area.
Any data sources for rain information would be appreciated. ie. Weather Service, Weather Bug, NOAA, Ohio Department of Transportation. If you have the link to where the weather data could be sourced automatically, please put it in the comment area.
It would be best to be a graphic output to make it easier to discern the data.
I am working on finding programmers and real time data streams to make an alpha model of this idea. Below is what I would like to have the representation look like, but of course this does not work with the inland river models.
If you are interested in working on this project. Contact me through the the OttawaFlood.com website contact page.
Also, if you have any knowledge of sources of realtime river gauge data, please post a link on the comments page. An RSS feed would probably be best.
I would like to work on the Blanchard/Maumee River Valley first. If you look at the post below, you will see it is the Green shaded area with the star in it, I believe the star is the location of Findlay, Ohio, which is upstream of Ottawa on the Blanchard River. It drains from the East to West into the Auglaize River Basin starting to move SW to NE and then into the Lower Maumee river basin eventually flowing into the Western Basin of Lake Erie.
If Findlay, Ohio has flooding, Ottawa will likely flood 12-30 hours later as the mass of water moves downstream.
The other idea is that there are multiple weather sources of information for rain data, that do not share the data. Possibly a Mashup of sorts could work to integrate the different data sources. If nothing else, a constantly updated map of 24 hour rain accumulations. This could be done relatively simply. Again, if you have the source code or data source for any online link to online accumulations, that would be great.
At the very, very bottom of this web page is a widget (widget - is a chunk of computer code embedded into a webpage that allows other websites or applications to work within the present website) that works for the Sea Level Change. Take a look at it, I don't think we have to worry too much about Lake Erie inundating us , unless all of Buffalo Slides into the Eastern End of Lake Erie and creates a massive Tsunami. I don't see that happening.
Also, at the bottom of the page, there is a Mashup Widget from Qrowd.com that takes textual data from the USGS on earthquakes in the world, and maps them graphically and allows you to see the scale of the earthquake. Pretty impressive what you can do to intake, manipulate and output on the internet, automatically.
Steve Teffenhardt
There are some limited applications on the Internet that address sea level change and how it would affect the coastal regions.
To get an idea of what a Mashup is on the net, goto this link:
I think of Mashups on the internet as just a way to take information or data sources on the internet and put them together (i.e. mash up) to represent things in another way. If you are familiar with Google Earth, this is a huge mashup of data from millions and millions of sources.
I would like to attempt to figure out a way to view flood levels in a dynamic (dynamic in the way of changing altitude and river flood level over an area) river valley setting.
To present this in as close to a possible real time dimension in a graphic way. Now, this would be nearly impossible to do with extreme accuracy because you will never know when a log or ice jam or some other impediment would be working against you, in a certain area, but it could help in a general way to keep people vigilant during flooding events along a river area.
Any data sources for rain information would be appreciated. ie. Weather Service, Weather Bug, NOAA, Ohio Department of Transportation. If you have the link to where the weather data could be sourced automatically, please put it in the comment area.
It would be best to be a graphic output to make it easier to discern the data.
I am working on finding programmers and real time data streams to make an alpha model of this idea. Below is what I would like to have the representation look like, but of course this does not work with the inland river models.
If you are interested in working on this project. Contact me through the the OttawaFlood.com website contact page.
Also, if you have any knowledge of sources of realtime river gauge data, please post a link on the comments page. An RSS feed would probably be best.
I would like to work on the Blanchard/Maumee River Valley first. If you look at the post below, you will see it is the Green shaded area with the star in it, I believe the star is the location of Findlay, Ohio, which is upstream of Ottawa on the Blanchard River. It drains from the East to West into the Auglaize River Basin starting to move SW to NE and then into the Lower Maumee river basin eventually flowing into the Western Basin of Lake Erie.
If Findlay, Ohio has flooding, Ottawa will likely flood 12-30 hours later as the mass of water moves downstream.
The other idea is that there are multiple weather sources of information for rain data, that do not share the data. Possibly a Mashup of sorts could work to integrate the different data sources. If nothing else, a constantly updated map of 24 hour rain accumulations. This could be done relatively simply. Again, if you have the source code or data source for any online link to online accumulations, that would be great.
At the very, very bottom of this web page is a widget (widget - is a chunk of computer code embedded into a webpage that allows other websites or applications to work within the present website) that works for the Sea Level Change. Take a look at it, I don't think we have to worry too much about Lake Erie inundating us , unless all of Buffalo Slides into the Eastern End of Lake Erie and creates a massive Tsunami. I don't see that happening.
Also, at the bottom of the page, there is a Mashup Widget from Qrowd.com that takes textual data from the USGS on earthquakes in the world, and maps them graphically and allows you to see the scale of the earthquake. Pretty impressive what you can do to intake, manipulate and output on the internet, automatically.
Steve Teffenhardt
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Here we flood again, February 2008
Unfortunately, the town of Ottawa, Ohio is flooding again. What a freak of nature! We didn't have a major flood of this level for at least 12 years and then within 6 months we have two major floods, the first being a 100 year flood, and now this one being a major flood event.
On the bright side (if there is one), the village of Ottawa and Putnam County already have a very good group of volunteers and agencies who are completely organized due to the previous flood event. So this will be very helpful in our second recovery.
In many conversations since the initial flood in August of 2007, it has been said that the mental health agencies and organizations were not fully utilized post-flood of the previous flood event. This is unfortunate. In this area there is commonly a will to take care our ourselves and not use outside help.
In the coming recovery, there will be many who will have been hit twice because of the flooding. If they were strong enough to endure the first time, don't just assume they may be capable of recovering the second time.
If you are aware of someone, a neighbor, a relative, a spouse, a co-worker, who is really having a tough time, please, consider enabling them or helping them seek out the appropriate mental-health care givers. Disaster is a very rare occurrence by definition. Several disasters in a row are obviously even more rare in the world. So really, let's watch each other closely and make sure that those of us who need help, go and receive help if needed.
Now is not the time to be too proud to get help for yourself or others.
My humble opinion,
Steve Teffenhardt
www.OttawaFlood.com
On the bright side (if there is one), the village of Ottawa and Putnam County already have a very good group of volunteers and agencies who are completely organized due to the previous flood event. So this will be very helpful in our second recovery.
In many conversations since the initial flood in August of 2007, it has been said that the mental health agencies and organizations were not fully utilized post-flood of the previous flood event. This is unfortunate. In this area there is commonly a will to take care our ourselves and not use outside help.
In the coming recovery, there will be many who will have been hit twice because of the flooding. If they were strong enough to endure the first time, don't just assume they may be capable of recovering the second time.
If you are aware of someone, a neighbor, a relative, a spouse, a co-worker, who is really having a tough time, please, consider enabling them or helping them seek out the appropriate mental-health care givers. Disaster is a very rare occurrence by definition. Several disasters in a row are obviously even more rare in the world. So really, let's watch each other closely and make sure that those of us who need help, go and receive help if needed.
Now is not the time to be too proud to get help for yourself or others.
My humble opinion,
Steve Teffenhardt
www.OttawaFlood.com
Important Links for the Ottawa, Ohio 2/2008 flood
- HOME, This page, and explanation of what www.OttawaFlood.com is all about
- Flood February 2008, Information about the latest flood situation
- NEWS, Links to many of the news articles that were posted online, in approximate order
- MEETINGS, Any flood related meetings we know about
- PICTURES AND VIDEO, Literally hundreds of pictures and video's from many different sources
- I NEED HELP, All the information about the resources available that we know about
- I WANT TO HELP/DONATIONS NEEDED, Great place to start if you or your organization wants to volunteer, donate time, resources or money to help in our recovery.
- VOLUNTEERS ARE NEEDED NOW, MORE THAN EVER! PLEASE CONSIDER COMING TO HELP REBUILD OUR TOWN.
- ELECTRICIANS, PLUMBERS AND PEOPLE WHO CAN HANG WALLBOARD ARE NEEDED!
-
- FAQs, Frequently Asked Questions, answered. ***NEW PAGE*** send us some questions via the contact page.
- IMPORTANT LINKS, Dozens of links to agencies, media outlets, information, on line white and yellow pages, churches, libraries, topographic maps, flood maps, weather, etc.
- FLOOD DISCOUNTS, Discounts listed for flood victims.
- BACK IN BUSINESS, A listing of the local merchants who have opened their doors.
- LONG TERM RECOVERY, A listing of the organizations involved with the long term recovery
- ACRONYMS/INITIALS, So many initials for everything, here are many of them defined.
- POSITIVE THOUGHTS, If you need a boost mentally, check this out.
- FLOOD HUMOR, Even in the most challenging of times, you need to laugh.
- THANK YOU!, A much too short list of people who have helped in the flood recovery.
- CONTACT If you have any information or questions, PLEASE contact us. If you have a question, probably many others would benefit from our answering it here. Also, any scrap of information related to the flood. LET US KNOW. The more we know, the more we can share, and the more others will know to help them.
OttawaFlood.com Blog on the net http://ottawaflood.blogspot.com/
Friday, September 21, 2007
Introduction to the Ottawa Flood Blog
print to 8.5 x 11 inches in landscape mode and post on a real life
bulletin board. Or use this picture to create a button to
Only with your help can we spread the word!
Hello Everyone,
Thanks for visiting with us at the OttawaFlood.Blogspot.com
This blog has several functions (at this time):
1. To get people to goto http://www.ottawaflood.com/ Please visit the home page to see what is available to get help or give help to those affected by the devestating flood in Ottawa, Ohio in late August 2007
2. To develop a dialogue to improve the lives and get out as much information to help those that need the help. How can all the different social services, NGO's (non-governmental agencies) effectively help those who need and are eligable for help, if they don't know they exist. So we are trying to act as the axis to get the information from the people or organizations that have it to the people who need and want it.
3. To keep the people of Ottawa in mind of others for the long term. We had a great response for the first two weeks for volunteers, but the need will be going on with a heavy need for several months and some longer term help for the next year or so.
Thanks for visiting with us at the OttawaFlood.Blogspot.com
This blog has several functions (at this time):
1. To get people to goto http://www.ottawaflood.com/ Please visit the home page to see what is available to get help or give help to those affected by the devestating flood in Ottawa, Ohio in late August 2007
2. To develop a dialogue to improve the lives and get out as much information to help those that need the help. How can all the different social services, NGO's (non-governmental agencies) effectively help those who need and are eligable for help, if they don't know they exist. So we are trying to act as the axis to get the information from the people or organizations that have it to the people who need and want it.
3. To keep the people of Ottawa in mind of others for the long term. We had a great response for the first two weeks for volunteers, but the need will be going on with a heavy need for several months and some longer term help for the next year or so.
Here are some links to the website:
Explore the site to see what information is available!
HOME, This page, and explanation of what http://www.ottawaflood.com/ is all about
MEETINGS, Any flood related meetings we know about
PICTURES AND VIDEO, Literally hundreds of pictures and video's from many different sources
I NEED HELP, All the information about the resources available that we know about
I WANT TO HELP/DONATIONS NEEDED, Great place to start if you want to donate time or money to help.
FAQs, Frequently Asked Questions, answered. ***NEW PAGE*** send us some questions via the contact page.
IMPORTANT LINKS, Dozens of links to agencies, information, on line white and yellow pages, churches, libraries, topographic maps, flood maps, weather, etc.
FLOOD DISCOUNTS, Discounts listed for flood victims
BACK IN BUSINESS, A listing of the local merchants who have opened their doors
LONG TERM RECOVERY, A listing of the organizations involved with the long term recovery
ACRONYMS/INITIALS, So many initials for everything, here are many of them defined.
Positive Thoughts, If you need a boost mentally, check this out.
THANK YOU!, A much too short list of people who have helped in the flood recovery
CONTACT If you have any information or questions, PLEASE contact us. If you have a question, probably many others would benefit from our answering it here. Also, any scrap of information related to the flood. LET US KNOW. The more we know, the more we can share, and the more others will know to help them.
OttawaFlood.com Blog on the net http://ottawaflood.blogspot.com/
Note: When you are searching the internet for anything related to Ottawa, make sure to use the search terms "Ottawa," and "Ohio" or "OH" otherwise you will be bogged down by all things related to Ottawa, Canada, (probably not what you are looking for.) It can be useful to try the search with using either "Ohio" or "OH" or a combination of both. The different combinations of keywords will all reveal different results in your search for information.Please leave a post, we want to hear from you, your thoughts, your links that may help others, etc.
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