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Ohio Valley communities recovering from an initial blast of driving rains and flooding could face a second round of damaging weather today.

Storms with potentially heavy rain and wind were expected to develop this morning and continue through this evening. Storms may persist through Saturday morning, according to the National Weather Service.

Meanwhile, a damage assessment by Belmont County officials turned into a rescue operation Thursday, helping people stranded on one side of Pipe Creek.

Belmont County Commissioner Chuck Probst, Belmont County Emergency Management Interim Director Dave Ivan and EMA Operations Chief Glenn Trudeau were out inspecting damage caused by storms that ripped through the area on Wednesday night when they learned a footbridge normally used by some of the area's residents to cross the creek had been washed away.

All that remained of the bridge Thursday was a wooden section on the north side of the creek while farther down the creek, the twisted metal remains could be seen still in the water.

"We had gone down to assess the damage and we stopped the truck and this lady pulled up and said her mother couldn't get out of her house," Probst said. "What we then found out was there were people stuck on the other side of the creek, mostly older people and some kids. Dave called the Shadyside Fire Department and the Neffs Fire Department was contacted to bring their boat and we started to bring them across."

While some of the younger people were able to walk through the creek, officials and firefighters had to help nine people across.

According to Probst, the Pipe Creek and Wegee Creek areas were the worst hit by the Wednesday storms.

Both areas were the sites of the deadly 1990 floods that killed 26 people.

In 2004, the bridge at the same location on Pipe Creek was destroyed when the remnants of Hurricane Frances and Ivan raised the waters, bringing with it debris that knocked out the bridge, stranding some residents.

Now the county is looking to the state and federal government for assistance, Probst said.

The first step will be to see if there was enough damage to get the area declared a disaster area by the state. Probst also said they will be contact the offices of U.S. senators George Voinovich and Sherrod Brown for possible federal funding.

County officials were also scheduled to meet with township trustees on Thursday.

The storms that barreled through the area on Wednesday evening left customers of the Tri-County Water Authority in a stage 3 conservation situation. A spokesman for the water district said all customers were urged to use water for drinking purposes only due to a critical loss of water that has left the supply tank nearly empty.

"We were notified by Martins Ferry last night to turn our pumps off during the storm because of power failure," said a spokesman foar the authority on Thursday. "Our water level in the tank dropped to only 2 feet by morning and a water leak was found near Bonnie Lane. Our supply is very, very low. This is a very critical situation."

Martins Ferry supplies water to the authority along with the Belmont County water system.

An estimated 700,000 gallons of water was lost before the line break was found.

In an attempt to refill the water storage tank authority personnel used generators to run pumps that were affected by the power outage.

"Unfortunately, we are on a three-phase power system with the pumps," said the spokesman who wished to remain anonymous. "The pumps are not functioning properly on the current power so the generators were brought in."

The break at Bonni e Lane has left approximately 20 households in the Century Hills area without water until further notice.

The line that was affected by the break is in a remote location in a valley near Belmont County Road 5.

Crews began repair on the break at approximately 3 p.m. The ground beneath the broken line was washed away in the storms and crews were forced to relocate the stream before beginning the repair work.

Carl Bowers, water superintendent for the water authority, said over 40-feet of line was washed out. After the repairs are made, work will begin to rebury the lines. In addition, a second section of line is threatened in a similar manner. It wasn't clear if or when work would commence to correct that problem.