Floodwaters swept back into Crooksville during the night before Monday, September 21, 2026, and into Monday morning, forcing the fire department to issue a voluntary evacuation notice for residents in flooded or flood-prone areas around 10:30 a.m. Monday and triggering three water rescues before dawn. The Moxahala Creek rose roughly eight feet at one point, and high water swamped parts of China Street, Mill Street, Industrial Drive, Tunnel Hill Road, Buzzards Glory Road and Ohio 93 south of the village.
Crooksville Fire Chief Dyrall Newlon estimated the creek's rise, according to kentucky.com, while the National Weather Service pegged overnight rainfall at between 1.5 and 3 inches. A flood warning covered Morgan County and eastern Perry County from 8:31 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Monday as crews worked to pull three people to safety overnight.
Just up the road in Roseville, Police Chief Derrick Keylor offered a grim comparison to the report: this round wasn't as severe as August's flooding, he said, largely because so many residents remain displaced from those earlier storms — but the same homes and buildings kept getting hit again. The article at myfox28columbus.com described floodwaters returning to Crooksville just weeks after the devastating August floods, filling homes that had already been abandoned from prior damage.
Same Streets, Same Nightmare
The outlet reported that flood damage from August had already led to homes being condemned on China Street, and that Sunday night's flooding prompted at least one resident's son to run a pump to limit new basement damage after hearing rain hit the roof. One area resident, Bill Leroy, told the outlet that repeated flooding outside Crooksville has become a regular part of life for people in the area.
August was brutal for Perry County. Severe flooding that month damaged homes, vehicles and roads and prompted a state of emergency, according to Spectrum News 1, with Crooksville, Roseville and New Lexington among the communities affected. Flooding returned to the county on Aug. 20 for the third time in just over a week, covering roads and leaving drivers to turn around and search for alternate routes, the outlet reported. One resident described the stretch as unlike anything the area had previously seen, saying at the time, “That's how it's been for the last two weeks. It's crazy around here.”
A Pattern Rooted in Saturated Ground
Ohio State Climatologist Aaron Wilson said parts of the state saw repeated heavy rainfall and flooding throughout August, with already-soaked soils increasing runoff whenever new storms rolled through, per the same Spectrum News 1 account. That pattern echoes what Fox Weather reported separately: already saturated soils in areas recovering from earlier flooding were expected to worsen the flash-flood threat during subsequent storms. Crooksville had also flooded on Aug. 11 following severe thunderstorms and heavy rainfall, according to the Zanesville Times Recorder, and a powerful derecho tore through the Midwest and Ohio Valley that same day, producing destructive straight-line winds, damaged homes and widespread power outages, as Fox Weather reported.
Recovery Resources Still Available
Perry County's recovery infrastructure has been stretched by the repeated flooding. The Perry County Multi-Agency Resource Center served 270 people between Aug. 24 and Aug. 28, including 202 county residents, according to the Perry Tribune. About 44 residents were served the following week, and a smaller resource center at the Corning library helped an estimated six to eight people, the paper reported. County commissioners said that after the multi-agency center closed, resources including HAPCAP, United Way and Job and Family Services remained available to residents still working through recovery.
