Clogged Sink Causes Massive Flooding in Wheeling

WHEELING - Despite being months away from flood season, the Ohio River rose up and swallowed Wheeling Island early yesterday morning in what is expected to be the most devastating flood that the region has ever seen. The flood began as water began spewing out of the McMahon residence on South York Street. Unfortunately for the citizens of Wheeling, the McMahons were on a 3 week vacation in Kosovo. Residents became aware of the clogged sink when Ryan McMahon tweeted, "LOL i think i left sink on hahaha." The tweet came a week after the McMahons left the valley, but water began gushing out nearly 5 days beforehand.

"I didn't think anything of it at first," said neighbor Bryan Callahan. "There's always water coming from their house."

"The water started to come out a few days ago," said Dillon Constantin, the McMahons' other neighbor. "It filled up the river, then moved out to the street."

"I was gonna go in and see if I could shut their water off," said Florence Davidson, another neighbor. "But I didn't want to go in without telling them and they weren't answering their phones."

"When I went to bed last night, my bed was on the floor like it usually is," said Ingrid Newcastle, yet another neighbor. "When I woke up this morning my face was a few inches from the ceiling because my bed was floating in the water!"

The water levels continue to rise at this time, as the McMahon residence is now completely submerged, rendering the faucet unreachable.

"FEMA was supposed to send in a group of divers yesterday," mayor Andy McKenzie said. "But I got a call from Janet Napolitano today and she asked me for directions."

Despite the setbacks, the Wheeling city council has looked to other means of handling the situation.

"We found Michael Phelps hanging out with Moondog yesterday," McKenzie told us. "We asked him to swim down into the house this morning and see if he could shut the water off."

When we asked if Phelps (with Moondog on right) had made any progress, McKenzie said that there haven't been any signs.

"He's been down there for about 12 hours," McKenzie said. "But I'm sure he's all right."

In the meantime, tens of thousands of displaced people are being packed into WesBanco Arena.

"WesBanco arena has a capacity of 5,500 people," said Anthony Collins, a janitor in the arena. "We put around 46,000 people inside it. It really shows you what the people of Wheeling can do when we have to."

As a means to keep people content in the arena, the city is hosting a nonstop Bingo tournament. The money made from the event will help sponsor the relief effort for the Japanese tsunami.