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New Manchester Fire Department Chief: Some
Edgewater Park residents chose to stay and ride out flood
By FRED MILLER, Review Staff Writer Three men who rode
out the Ohio River flood at the Edgewater Park trailer court
had the chance to be rescued but instead asked firefighters
"to make a beer run," said the New Manchester Volunteer Fire
Department chief.
An anonymous caller to The Review commented about Tuesday's
Review article about Dean Shultz, the Edgewater resident who
rode out the Sept. 18-19 flood for 12 hours in a rowboat.
Another four men remained in two frame houses at the trailer
park.
"He wasn't stuck there. He could have been rescued," said
the caller about Shultz. "The Newell Fire Department was
called down there to rescue five people, but only one came
out. The other four refused."
It appears, however, that Shultz, who said he was sleeping
at the time in his trailer, did not know of the Saturday
afternoon rescue attempt, though he could have come out
earlier.
New Manchester Volunteer Fire Department Chief [Roger Stewart], whose department was there along with Newell,
confirmed that firefighters went by boat to Edgewater Park, a
trailer park between the river and the Tomlinson Run
backwaters, to get residents out Saturday afternoon, only to
be rebuffed.
"Only one came out," he said. "An 80-year-old man with his
two dogs was in a house. He said he stayed for all the rest of
them (floods). The three that were in (another) house asked if
we would make a beer run for them."
[Stewart] said firefighters went door-to-door, knocking or, if
the door was unlocked, sticking their heads inside to yell for
anyone remaining. They found nobody else, he said.
Shultz had said he fell asleep in his trailer and didn't
wake up until 10 p.m. Saturday night when the water was
flowing deep and strong around his house trailer. Not knowing
how high the water might get, he decided the safest place for
him and his two dogs was in an aluminum rowboat tethered to a
tree by his trailer.
He and the dogs spent a long, cold night in the rowboat,
getting out about 10 a.m. Sunday when waters began to recede.
[Stewart] said one man who had been drinking late Friday night
at Edgewater became so abusive and argumentative toward
firefighters that [Stewart] called county deputies on the man.
"There was one guy there so intoxicated, cussing and
yelling ... The ones who were not drinking were helpful,"
[Stewart] said.
Firefighters and residents rescued several camper trailers
Friday night. Some campers and boats on trailers were towed to
the Career Center and state police station parking lot not far
away on higher ground.
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