Hancock County health officials on Monday announced the county’s fourth confirmed case of coronavirus.

“Now it’s more important than ever to not let our guard down,” said Health Commissioner Karim Baroudi in the video below.

He reminds people to keep their physical distancing, wash their hands thoroughly and cover their sneezes and coughs.

The commissioner says we’ll likely see the number of cases peak in the next few weeks and it would be a shame to lose all the momentum we have gained from everyone’s sacrifices over the last few weeks.

He’s asking everyone in the county to turn their porchlight on on Thursday, April 2nd from 7 to 8pm in a show of support for our healthcare workers.

“This is important to show everybody that we’re all in this together and we will come out of this together.”

People are urged to take pictures and video and share them on social media at #HancockCountyStrong.

As of Monday, there were 1,933 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Ohio and 39 deaths.

People experiencing coronavirus symptoms of shortness of breath, cough, fever of 100.4 or higher and fatigue should call the Blanchard Valley Hospital COVID-19 testing center at 419-423-7890.

For local information and resources people can call the Hancock County Resource Call Center at 419-425-9999.

The Findlay YMCA childcare center has been designated a pandemic childcare center, providing childcare for families of essential workers in the community.

CEO Paul Worstell says it you are a worker in healthcare, a first responder, or other essential services and have a childcare need, you can reach out to the YMCA childcare center at 429-422-3174.

He says their normal capacity is around 300, but under this pandemic designation it’s down to 90 and class sizes have been greatly reduced to protect the children.

As of Monday morning they had about 30 openings left.

Get more details here.

Ohio’s coronavirus outbreak should peak in mid-May.

That’s what a group of statistical modelers at the Cleveland Clinic told Governor Mike DeWine.

The same group noted that hospitals would need to triple their current capacity to keep the state’s healthcare system from going off the rails.

According to Dr. Amy Acton, the head of the Ohio Department of Health, the Buckeye State could see up to 10,000 new cases per day when the outbreak peaks.

“We are flattening the curve in Ohio,” Acton said.

“Those numbers would have been 50 to 75 percent higher had we not acted a couple of weeks ago.”

People experiencing coronavirus symptoms of shortness of breath, cough, fever of 100.4 or higher and fatigue should call the Blanchard Valley Hospital COVID-19 testing center at 419-423-7890.

For local information and resources people can call the Hancock County Resource Call Center at 419-425-9999.

Flood warnings have been issued for the Blanchard River and Eagle Creek in Findlay after we picked up a lot of rain the last few days.

The Flood Warning for the Blanchard River goes from Sunday afternoon through Monday morning.

Flood stage is 11 feet and the river is expected to rise to around 11.3 feet by Sunday night and fall below flood stage Monday morning.

Minor flooding is forecast.

Eagle Creek has been upgraded from minor to moderate flooding as it’s expected to rise to around 10.2 feet Sunday afternoon, more than one foot above flood stage of 9 feet.

There’s also a Flood Warning in effect for the Blanchard River in Ottawa from Monday morning to Wednesday morning with minor flooding forecasted.

1.3 inches of rain was recorded since Friday night at the City of Findlay Water Pollution Control Center on River Road.

An Ohio Department of Transportation truck was hit by a passing box truck in a work zone on State Route 15 at U.S. 68 just south of Findlay on Friday.

The ODOT employee in the truck nor the driver of the box truck was injured.

ODOT spokesperson Matt Bruning says it’s very frustrating that this keeps happening.

“This is the ninth time that our crews have been hit since Valentine’s Day and that’s a really frustrating thing for us.”

He says crews always put up plenty of things alerting drivers to road work ahead like barrels, cones, reflective tape and signage, and they just need drivers to start paying attention.

“Our people are the most important things to us and we try to keep them safe and will continue to remind drivers to move over and slow down when you see our crews on the side of the road.”

Findlay and Hancock County are included in a Severe Thunderstorm Watch issued by the National Weather Service.

The watch goes until 8 p.m. Saturday but storms are possible late into the night and overnight and Sunday morning.

Forecasters say thunderstorms and heavy rain are expected in the afternoon and evening Saturday.

The primary hazard with these storms is hail, but damaging wind gusts are also possible. An isolated tornado also cannot be ruled out.

The rainfall could result in flooding of poor drainage areas and rises on area rivers and streams.

On Saturday morning a few severe storms passed just south of Findlay, dropping some hail along the way.

The Findlay Fire Department on Friday dropped off gift bags to the winners of its coloring contest, like 10-year-old Ava and her family on Hurd Avenue.

The fire department is staying connected to the community during the coronavirus pandemic through Community Connection Videos on their Facebook page.

The first video asked youngsters to color a picture and on Friday the four winners were notified and fire trucks came down their street to deliver their gift bags.

“This gives us an opportunity to reach out to families and kids that would normally come in and check out the fire trucks from time to time, and our guys really enjoy this just as much as the kids probably,” said Battalion Chief Matt Cooper.

Now the fire department is asking kids to send them a picture of them reading their favorite book, and more winners will be selected next week.

Hancock County health officials on Friday announced the county’s second and third cases of coronavirus.

Hancock Public Health Commissioner Karim Baroudi says both cases, a 33-year-old and a 37-year-old woman, were tested at the Blanchard Valley Hospital coronavirus testing center.

He says one of the patients is isolating at home and one is hospitalized outside the county.

He says no more details on the patients will be released due to strict patient confidentiality laws.

“It’s very important for all of us to understand that it shouldn’t matter where the cases live, what matters is what we do moving forward to slow the spread of this virus.”

Baroudi says we need to continue to focus on three things; wash our hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, stay home, and practice physical distancing.

At the governor’s daily update on Friday it was announced that there were 1,137 cases in Ohio with 19 deaths.

Health officials said we should really start to see an uptick in cases in about two weeks with the peak number of cases happening in mid-May.

People experiencing coronavirus symptoms of shortness of breath, cough, fever of 100.4 or higher and fatigue should call the Blanchard Valley Hospital COVID-19 testing center at 419-423-7890.

For local information and resources people can call the Hancock County Resource Call Center at 419-425-9999.

Hancock County and Findlay are included in a Flash Flood Watch issued by the National Weather Service.

The watch goes from late Friday through Saturday morning.

Forecasters say a warm front is expected to lift north into the area Friday night.

A line of storms with heavy rain is expected to linger around the U.S. 30 corridor late Friday and into late Saturday morning.

A widespread 1 to 2 inches of rain are likely along a line from Findlay to Mansfield, with locally higher amounts of 3 inches or greater.

A Flash Flood Watch is issued when there is a potential for flash flooding. Flash flooding is a very dangerous situation.

Flash flooding will lead to rapidly rising and swift-moving water in creeks and low lying areas.

The Blanchard River is forecast to reach moderate flood stage by Sunday morning.

A Hancock County man died when his boat capsized on Indian Lake in Logan County.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources says David E. Hamilton, 59, of Rawson, was pulled from the water at approximately 12:20 p.m. on Thursday.

CPR was performed on Hamilton at the scene and he was taken to a hospital in Bellefontaine where he was pronounced deceased.

He was the lone occupant of the boat.

The ODNR points out that water temperatures are slow to respond to the change of the seasons, and when the water is less than 50 degrees the window for rescue is only a few minutes if the person isn’t dressed for cold water conditions.

More safety tips from the ODNR are available here.