Ohio River flood of 1937
Federal and state resources were strained to aid recovery as the disaster occurred during the depths of the Great Depression and a few years after the beginning of the Dust Bowl.
[1] A handful of powerhouse radio stations, including WLW Cincinnati and WHAS Louisville, quickly switched to non-stop news coverage, transmitting commercial-free for weeks.
The Regionalist painter Thomas Hart Benton was commissioned by The Kansas City Star and St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspapers to provide sketches depicting the miserable conditions of the flooded areas in the Missouri Bootheel region.
[5] When it became obvious that the river would cut the electric power to radio station WHAS—thus cutting the last radio voice in Louisville—the rival clear channel station in Nashville, WSM, picked up WHAS's broadcast via telephone and broadcast emergency flood reports for three days for the lower Ohio River.
Around January 18, Huntington, West Virginia radio station WSAZ (1190 AM) began hourly broadcasts of flood related news.
Messages of inquiry concerning the safety of friends and relatives, warnings of rising gasoline-covered waters, appeals for help from marooned victims, orders to relief agencies and workers poured into the cramped studios and quickly broadcast.
Staff and local volunteers stayed on the air and provided information and support for nine days until 8:00 o'clock the following Sunday night, Jan 31, when the station's regular schedule was resumed.
[7] The federal government under President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent thousands of area WPA workers to the affected cities to aid in rescue and recovery.
Additionally, the amusement park Coney Island was submerged, causing pieces of carousel horses to float away, which were recovered as far downriver as Paducah.
[14] Residents were rapidly evacuated from river town by train and bus in the early stages of the flood, making Indiana the only state to avoid drowning fatalities.
The Evansville Merchants Retail Bureau took out newspaper ads to praise their work:[2] Before and during the flood these men of WPA were active in salvaging property and saving lives, and immediately afterward they handled the cleanup job with such efficiency that many visitors were amazed that there was practically no evidence of the flood left throughout our entire city.
All honor and gratitude is due to the rank and file of the WPA for their often almost super-human efforts, always giving their best in the interest of humanity.The Red Cross and federal government spent the equivalent of $11 million in today's money in aid to the city.
[16] Between Gallatin County and Harrisburg, about 25 miles (40 km) of Illinois Route 13 was covered by 8.0 to 14.0 feet (2.4 to 4.3 m) of water; motorboats navigated the entire distance to rescue marooned families.
Afterwards, the Army Corps of Engineers erected a levee north and east of the city to protect it from future floods.
Cairo itself was saved only by low water levels on the Mississippi River, which rose only to the highest spots on the levees without surmounting them.
Several businesses in the Louisville area were devastated, especially the famed Rose Island amusement park (on the Indiana side of the river near Charlestown), which never rebuilt.
The east end has since benefited by a long-term concentration of wealth among residents and businesses which located away from the older central and western areas of the city.
With 18 inches (460 mm) of rainfall in 16 days, along with sheets of swiftly moving ice, the '37 flood was the worst natural disaster in Paducah's history.
Flooding in Frankfort submerged half the city and caused an emergency when panicked prisoners in the old Kentucky State Penitentiary started rioting with the rising waters.
[21][22][23][24][25] In Frankfort where the uncontrollable waters of the Kentucky River had attained an all-time crest of 48.45 feet, nearly one-half of the city was submerged.
This included the one hundred and forty year old State Penitentiary from which about 3,000 convicts, guards and officials were evacuated under military supervision directed personally by Governor A.
[26] First responders, volunteers, and the Army Corps of Engineers navigated the city via rowboats and helped citizens to reach the relief shelters set up in undamaged churches and schools.
[26] After a prolonged fight and a legal battle that made it to the West Virginia Supreme Court, the flood wall was approved, and the project was taken on by the United States Army Corps of Engineers.
