Monnday, January 17, 2005
 
OUT OF THE PAST: January 1937 Flooding Originally Not Expected to be Disastrous
 
by Tony Rutherford
Huntington News Network Columnist
 
Huntington (HNN) -- Back on Jan. 19, 1937 as the frigid Ohio River crept to 50 feet, Cincinnati forecasters anticipated that it would not rise above 55 feet. Although the street department began evacuating residents in the eastern and western portions of Huntington, the flood was “not expected to be as disastrous as that of March 1936,” wrote Hugh Maxwell in the Herald-Dispatch. Still, the mayor conferred with the Red Cross and ensured that other relief agencies were mobilized.

The river was rising at 0.2 feet per hour, which was down from 0.3 feet the previous night. But the Jan. 19 rise at Lock 28 also was higher than brief 0.1 foot per hour reading between 10 p.m.-11 p.m. Jan 18. Attendants said the upsurge came from runoff of the Kanawha River flowing into the Ohio at Point Pleasant.

In fact, the Associated Press reported that crews “got out boats and lanterns for the first time since March 1936” to move low lying families to higher ground in Point Pleasant which had 44.2 feet of water. Merchants moved their stock, but river watchers expected the crest there to also be around 50 feet.

While the Army was hard at work at levies as “drenching downpours [Jan 18] wrought new havoc along glutted streams in the muddy Ohio Valley,” an A.P story revealed. The one to two inches of rain sent the river out of its banks from Pittsburgh to Cairo, Ill. Nine other states with tributaries to the Ohio River were affected. In Hazleton, Ind., a levee broke submerging that city in water. Still, temperatures were expected to drop into the teens bringing an end to the rain. At the time, Cincinnati appeared to be the worst hit by the mid-January flooding.

Newly inaugurated W.Va. Governor Homer Holt requested the use of “equipment and buildings” at Camp Conley, a National Guard facilities a few miles from Point Pleasant. Upriver in Parkersburg, Mayor H.R. DeBussey said 230 people had been evacuated with the help of a 100 man crew.

The Wheeling News-Intelligencer ran a headline Jan. 19 proclaiming “Wheeling to Escape Extensive Damage by Fraction, Rivermen Say; Drop in Temperatures Due.” The Wheeling paper indicated that the river would flood Pittsburgh, reaching about 25 feet; however, the river would need to reach 36 feet in Wheeling. A weather observer in Pittsburgh said that the “volume of water coming out of the Allegheny was less than expected.” The Intelligencer reported that the floods would not disrupt industrial mill operations at Wheeling Steel's plant in Martin's Ferry where 39 feet of water would be required for a shut down.

Still, 600 families had to be evacuated from their homes in Huntington and ominously U.S. Engineers declined to predict the final river topping off point, although a 55.3 foot crest was seen as likely. As the National Guard cared for Point Pleasant refugees, downpours came again. Papers in one city after another published that higher stages of flooding would be coming, but no one then knew exactly how much rain and resulting flood waters would rampage upon these low lying cities.

TO BE CONTINUED…
 
The writer, Tony Rutherford, can be reached by email at trutherford@huntingtonnews.net.