Imagine looking out the window of your home, seeing rapidly rising water damaging your property.

Now consider this is a nightmare you have seen before.

This was the case across Lawrence County Tuesday and Wednesday as heavy rains and thunderstorms caused flash flooding across the region, devastating many families facing property damage and claimed the life of a Franklin Furnace woman.

Although this spring and summer have featured higher than normal rain, the problem is that many of the areas have this problem many times each year.

Lawrence Street Road. State Route 93. Lick Creek. Porter Gap Road. The list goes on.

It is impossible to ever fully overcome Mother Nature and prepare for natural disasters like this.

But preparation and planning go a long way.

Most of the problems with flooding in Lawrence County are reoccurring and the cause is clear: poor infrastructure.

It is time for state, local and national leaders to get together and create real plans to assess and correct these problems.

Many could likely be fixed or minimized very inexpensively with creek dredging, bank reinforcement and drainage installation and repair.

Every case may not be easily addressed so we need a long-term plan to correct these problems.

This won’t be an easy task and cannot be handled by one municipality or entity. It will take cooperation from government officials for the county, Ironton, the villages, the townships and the Ohio Department of Transportation.

Property owners need to be involved too so they can do their part to protect their assets.

We may never be stronger than Mother Nature but we don’t stand a chance if we don’t prepare smart and take action.