Cars are moved first, then furniture is hoisted onto cinder blocks or sawhorses. The children are dressed and, along with pets, evacuated to the home of a relative or friend.
If the rain continues to fall on site or somewhere upstream, everyone must leave. They return the next morning to survey the damage and watch as the water recedes. They await the arrival of reporters, some of whom have covered floods for years and know the residents of the riverbanks by first name.
In a few hours, or weeks, or months, they will do it all again. "It can (flood) in the winter and it can do it in the spring and it can do it in the summertime. About the only time you're safe is in the fall, when the water is usually so low," said Linda, 50, who declined to reveal her last name. She has been living along the Whitewater River in Dearborn County for 10 years.
"It's just beautiful," she said. "If you love this river, you stay."
"This wasn't so bad," he said, happily pointing to a dry plot of land where he will cultivate a vegetable garden in the weeks to come.
The water has never flowed into the prefabricated home where he lives with his wife, Rebecca, and her 18-year-old son, David Tackett.
But Mr. Huff, who has spent all of his 36 years on the land given to him by his father, has watched the Great Miami River converge with Jordan Creek to overrun the bulk of the property.
"Every time it comes up, you're always like that -- you think about leaving. Anything you put up here (near the water), it will wash away," Mr. Huff said. "I think the reason I stay is the peace and quiet."
He shares his corner of the world with just two neighbors, Canada geese and lots of other birds. There are a few houses across busy East Miami Road, but they are on higher ground and seem disconnected from the quiet spot where Mr. Huff optimistically placed a wooden bench now surrounded by water.
"It's just always been home to me," he said. "My dad bought this land in 1976. He always told me, "This is going to be your place.' " He says his wife, a Loveland native who joined him in his home near Cleves when they were married in 1994, is still worried by the floods and the rain. But she's beginning to get over it.
"Once you're used to living like this, it doesn't really bother you. There's nothing you can do about it anyway," Mr. Huff said. "My family's feeling is, grin and bear it."
LOGAN TOWNSHIP -- On the banks of the Whitewater River in Dearborn County's Logan Township, Robert Coole kept a watchful eye on the water Wednesday night. He and his brother-in-law, together with a cousin, took turns marking its rise.
At about 1 a.m. Thursday, when they realized the river had moved 4 feet closer to their three homes on Lawson Lane in just 30 minutes, they awakened their wives and kids and started to move out.
The cars were parked up the hill, on Barber Road overlooking their spread. A water rescue team arrived to evacuate the children, and a neighbor came to take their dogs to her dry, fenced-in yard. By daybreak, the adults had lifted as much as their furniture as possible off the ground, unplugged the appliances and retreated in a small boat to go sit in their cars.
"I don't worry about it any more," said Mr. Coole, 47, who has lived on the spot for 14 years. "I've got flood insurance, and they'll cover it."
This time, the families were lucky: The water reached only the foundations of their homes and did not get inside. But Mr. Coole recalled times when it has been much worse.
"That boat right there is strictly for emergencies," he said, gesturing toward the tiny outboard before pointing out a cabin cruiser moored near his house. "You see that 23-foot cruiser over there? If the water gets any higher, we just cut it loose and we can go anywhere we want to."
Patty Horton, Mr. Coole's sister-in-law, said she stays on the spot because she loves the river. And she can't afford to move. "I own my place. I can't go nowhere else," she said.
Her aunt and uncle, Martha and Jim Meadows, picked out the site while on a canoe trip 18 years ago. Mr. Meadows calls it "paradise."
But Martha tired of the flooding, and she and her husband moved to Ripley, Ohio, a few years ago.
"You know how it is with us people on the river -- once we get down here, you can't make us leave," Mr. Meadows said. "I love it. I'd come back if (Mrs. Meadows) would let me."
Hidden from view by rows of trees and the expanse of the Whitewater River, residents of a small settlement in northeastern Dearborn County answer only to each other and the water.
A gravel road winds down to their prefabricated homes and trailers, beneath an Interstate 74 overpass where someone has spray-painted a Grateful Dead sentiment: "Welcome to Cripple Creek."
Linda, 50, who doesn't want to reveal her last name, has lived for 10 years among the 40 or so homes, which are divided between weekend and full-time residents. In 1994, she began using the site to raise turkeys.
"Some people spend all year working to spend two weeks like this. . . . We live here year 'round," she said. "It's just beautiful. If you love this river, you stay."
Of course, living on the water does have its dicey moments.
On Wednesday night, she and her neighbors were panicked by weather reports that predicted a 22.5-foot crest for the river. That would have brought it well into their homes. She rounded up her hens and had them evacuated.
But in the end, Linda says, the water crested at a much lower level. A self-appointed overnight river watcher, Linda calls everyone else whenever the water starts to rise. When it reaches the 21-inch mark on a pole in her back yard, she knows that the road is about to be washed out.
"I call everybody and wake them up and nobody even yells at me," she said with a laugh. "That's the way it is back here. Everybody is real friendly, not like in the city."
In the end, she says that's what keeps her on the water. There are lots of people around with similar goals and values, and they are always willing to help each other out.
"We love being outdoors. We love the river. We're self-sufficient people -- some would say outsiders," Linda said. "But we all stick together. Anybody along this river, they're always there for you."
Maxine Robinson says she's ready to leave an area that is frequently threatened by flooding of the Clear Creek and Little Miami rivers.
(Tony Jones photo)
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ANDERSON TOWNSHIP -- When the heavy rain started Wednesday night, Denise Roberts and her husband, Claude, began moving furniture up the stairs of their two-story house in the Old Fort area of Anderson Township.
They didn't want a repeat of last year, when 9 inches of Little Miami River flood water destroyed everything on the first floor. This time, water covered their yard but didn't enter the house. They have gone through this ritual for eight years, but they said Friday they will not move.
"In the summertime this is the most beautiful place in the world," Mrs. Roberts said. "I told my husband this time that if we have to move out as we did last year, I was not coming back. But I knew I was lying. It's hard to leave here. We fight the flood water and suffer the consequences, but beyond that, this is an absolutely beautiful place."
As Mr. Roberts slept after working a long shift at his roofing business, Mrs. Roberts recalled their bouts with flooding on their property, 500 yards from the Little Miami.
"The flood water gets to us first, even though there are people living closer to the river. It circles around and comes in from that direction as if it is filling up a channel," she said, pointing to the west.
She said their warning comes from Clear Creek, about 1,500 yards south of their home.
"Whenever we see the water in the creek seeping over its banks, we know then the water is backing up from the Little Miami," she said.
They sought refuge last year at the home Mr. Roberts' parents. But their dog, Jed, didn't like the idea of moving.
"We took him with us, but he jumped in the water and swam back home," Mrs. Roberts said.
The fact that the Federal Emergency Management Administration is offering $1.6 million in grant money to relocate families in this flood-ridden, 30-acre area, doesn't concern Mrs. Roberts, 31. But several blocks away, Maxine Robinson, 62, said that after fighting floods for 31 years, she would move out.
"As soon as they say it is OK and give me the money, I am out of here," she said.
Mention floods, and Tim Napier's thoughts turn to evacuating 140 employees, closing two steel doors and checking a sump pump.
Mr. Napier is vice president and owner of CNW, a printing supply company at 4710 Madison Road, Madisonville, near the banks of Duck Creek.
He's a flood fighter out of necessity because his business is right in the middle of the Duck Creek Basin, where flash floods occur a half-dozen times a year.
As some people fled their homes and businesses in the 4 1/2-inch downpour last week, Mr. Napier put his flood-fighting plan in operation as water from Duck Creek rose within a foot of the company's driveway.
"I closed these steel doors that are tightly sealed and waited to see what would happen," he said. It was a standoff. The water never made it to the doors.
He can't forget last year, when 18 inches of water swept through the first floor of his business, causing an estimated $1 million in damage, he said.
But to move would be admitting defeat, he said.
"I am waiting for this big flood wall the (U.S. Army) Corps of Engineers is supposed to build," he said.
Mr. Napier has had his bouts with the corps and the city of Cincinnati, beginning when he built his own temporary berm along the creek to stop flood water from coming into his parking lot and first floor of his plant.
But when the corps planned its $14 million Flood Protection Plan for Duck Creek, Mr. Napier was told his berm had to come down. "I am not moving. I like where I am. This is a good location right on Madison Road. I'm just waiting to see what the corps is going to do," he said.
