Todd Richard, zoning and flood plan administrator for the city of Findlay, says a few streets are closed but there has been no significant damage from the rising Blanchard River near Findlay.

Richard said Friday morning that a nursing home voluntarily evacuated its residents but he was not aware of any other people having to leave their homes.

Richard says the river was at 14 feet Friday, or about three feet above flood stage.

Some local schools were operating on two-hour delays on Friday.

The weather service predicted the river would rise by another 2 feet and crest Friday afternoon.

The court ruled 5-2 Wednesday that the state is in contempt of the court’s 2011 ruling and must complete most compensation cases within four months.

At issue is how fast the Department of Natural Resources is responding to a year-old court order to compensate 87 landowners near Grand Lake St. Marys in western Ohio.

Landowners say a horseshoe-shaped dam the state built in 1997 has led to significant floods almost every year since then.

Attorneys for the landowners alleged the state has dragged its feet since last year, while the state said it has taken extraordinary measures to move forward with the appraisal process.

Several residents of the Greenbriar Village Mobile Home Park were evacuated by boat this morning. Licking County Emergency Management Agency Director Jeff Walker says two shelters have been set up near Hebron.

A tire repair center just outside the trailer park was also offering people refreshments and letting people use the facility to change clothes.

Lakewood Local Schools in Licking County closed Hebron Elementary School and Jackson Intermediate School. A district spokeswoman tells The Columbus Dispatch classes were canceled because buses were having difficulty getting to students through high water on roads.

The National Weather Service has received reports throughout the morning of hail and flooding in Licking County and neighboring Fairfield County.

After initial predictions that Findlay would be flooded again, the National Weather Service had good news for residents. Pete Sehnert is Findlay’s mayor.

“The weather service has downgraded our crest from 13’1″ to 12’5″,” Sehnert says.

Sehnert says the decline of just a few inches means that most of the homes in Findlay will escape flooding; as will the downtown section which was hit by a devastating flood in 2007.

“Probably about 13 feet is where you start to get more residential impact actually,” Sehnert says.

Q: But you don’t expect that this time?

“No. If they downgrade it to 12’5″ we’ll be satisfied with that,” Sehnert says

Earlier, the weather service predicted that heavier rains would fall across Ohio.

The Ohio River Forecast Center predicts the river will crest today about a foot above flood stage. Local police have already closed several streets because of high water.

In Marion county, residents of the small town of Larue are keeping a close eye on the Scioto River, which is also about a foot above flood stage.

Boats won’t be taking to the water to evacuate residents just yet. County E-M-A director Jim Deal said today in Circleville that flooding from the Scioto River and tributaries should be limited to some county roads and a few state highways.

“When we reach flood stages such as this we have a lot of county roads in small townships that are underwater at this time in certain sections so they’re being blocked off,” Deal Says. “When it does get to 21 ft., it does go over some state highways; State Route 762 in the northern part of the county. And also it will hit areas of US 22 and State Route 56 just west of the city. It will flood that at 21 ft.”

The National Weather Service in Wilmington says the Scioto River at Circleville will crest at 21 ft., tomorrow morning at 2 o’clock. That will force water upstream in tributaries like the creek that flows past the already soggy Brookside Mobile Home Park.

“It gets up in the creek over there, the other day it was up to the top of it.”Lola Colburn lives in one of the mobile homes just north of downtown. She says she has not received any evacuation notice, but she says:

“I hope we don’t get flooded out.”

County EMA director Deal says officials will keep an eye on low-lying areas like the trailer park where Colburn lives, though he says, he doesn’t expect any evacuations.

“We’re going out this afternoon with the health department and make sure that these mobile homes have their propane tanks strapped down, their fuel oil tanks secured to something,” Deal says. “That’s the problem we had back in 2005. The propane tanks and fuel oil tanks were overturning and being ripped from the structures.”

Jim Noel of the National Weather Service’s Ohio River Forecast Center in Wilmington says drivers should watch for dangerous water covering roads and highways.

“Turn around, don’t drown, and stay away from the flood waters if possible,” Noel says.

Jim Leanard is the Interim Director of the Franklin County Emergency Service Agency. He says heavy rains in and around the state last week threatened flooding. But he says the waters have receded since then and right now we’re in pretty good shape.

Leanard says so far the run off into area rivers and streams is manageable.

Officials are keeping an eye on Hart Road on the city’s south side, Gould’s Park in Gahanna and Route 315 near the Delaware county line.

Temperatures are expected to remain in the thirties and forties today which should slow melting snows.

“The Olentangy we are not as concerned about because the dam can control most of the flooding for the Olentangy which is a concern as it meets up with the Scioto right down there by OSU, Worthington, Mount Airy, those areas are low along the Olentangy. The place we don’t have a control is along the Scioto River. So that is one of the areas we check along with some of the creeks around the areas because we can’t control that.”

Gallagher says the Army Corps of Engineers, which controls the dam, released water in anticipation of the snow storm. He says, now they are holding water until the streams and tributaries drain out of the Olentangy. Currently water levels in Delaware and Franklin County are slightly higher than normal. Franklin County EMS director Jim Leonard says the weather forecast for later in the week which includes warm temperatures and rain could cause a problem not only with waterways but also sewer systems.

“If you get to a faster melt which could occur if temperatures get up into the 50′s it could overwhelm the systems. In that case what we do is to start monitoring areas that are low lying and keep an eye out for possibilities of any area type flooding.”

Leonard says he is watching three areas in particular around the county that typically flood; Hart Road on the city’s south side, Gould’s Park in Gahanna and Route 315 near the Delaware County line.

Operators of the dam have been slowly released water from the lake which officials say has helped keep the water level below the dam.

Because of the advisory, some residents in low lying areas evacuated and Ohio State University began making plans to cope with what officials warned could have been the worst flooding along the Olentangy in decades.

Officials today say they apologize for any inconvenience the advisory may have caused, but they wanted to make sure people were ready incase the worst happened.

Carter stresses the warnings are very precautionary.

Franklin county emergency officials also warn of high water similar to what we saw last week.

Click the Listen icon to hear an extended interview with Delaware County EMA spokesman Jesse Carter.