Over a decade ago, I had a decidedly different job. As a naturalist and educator for a local park district, I had the opportunity to work, and often to play, at the intersection of nature and history. I loved bringing history to life both at fixed park sites and all along the trails that wove throughout the county. Telling a good story with the beauty of nature as a backdrop was one of my favorite ways to interact with guests.
Perhaps no other time with the park district was as rewarding or as relevant to stormwater. At the time, I was blessed with the opportunity to share the history of the Flood of 1913 through a yearlong collaborative event hosted by the park district. The program began on March 23, 2013, a hundred years to the day of the great flood. Thousands visited the exhibit and participated in related programs throughout the year.
Now, a dozen years later, I want to share some of the text from the exhibit. While my job may be different, a stormwater inspector instead of a park naturalist, the knowledge of extreme weather and its potential impacts is just as important today as it was when I wore a different job hat.
The Flood of 1913
It was March 23, 1913 — Easter Sunday — when the rains began. What would follow, however, quickly proved to be not just another early spring storm. Heavy rains, as much as 12 inches in some locations, pounded the state relentlessly for three days in late March 1913. Days later, when the waters finally subsided, nearly 450 lives had been lost, 40,000 homes destroyed, millions of dollars in damages wrought and the route of the Ohio & Erie Canal destroyed beyond repair.
In nearby Massillon, floodwaters breached the banks of the Tuscarawas River and overwhelmed the Ohio & Erie Canal, inundating the downtown and causing substantial flooding for miles around. Bridges spanning the Tuscarawas disappeared beneath the flood waters and watermarks reached the second story of buildings along the river’s course. This was truly a flood event of epic proportions.
The Flood of 1913, an unprecedented event in Ohio’s history, remains Ohio’s worst natural disaster.
Post flood
On March 25, The Evening Independent reported that a “one-mile wide torrent” flooded the City of Massillon. The next day, the flood waters ebbed, and those along the Ohio & Erie Canal began to emerge from their homes to the safety of higher ground. What they saw was unlike anything the residents of Ohio had ever witnessed.
Along the length of Ohio’s rivers and canals, the catastrophe unfolded. To the north, the City of Akron dynamited a series of canal locks to save the downtown from flooding. The iron bridge at Cherry Street in Canal Fulton had been wrenched from its trestles by the force of surging water. In Massillon, railroads were submerged and the very presses of The Evening Independent underwater, delaying the newspaper’s publications.
Even the impressive lift bridge over the canal on Massillon’s Main Street, the largest lift bridge in Ohio at the time, was impacted by the flood. Dedicated and raised for the first time just days before on March 20, 1913, there was now no reason to raise the bridge. The Ohio & Erie Canal would not reopen.
The Flood of 1913, adding upon the increase in other forms of transportation (railroads, streetcars and eventually the automobile), spelled the end of the canal era in Ohio.
Human impact
A picture is worth a thousand words. The old adage holds true when it comes to the human reaction to the Flood of 1913. The expressions captured on the faces of those impacted by the flooding showed the myriad of emotions in the days following the flood. Some photos depicted the shock of witnessing the devastation in the wake of the flood. Others photographed appeared to be enjoying the novelty of it all, even laughing gaily as they posed for photographs at the footer of a washed-out bridge.
Larger perspective
“The flood was second only to Noah’s.”
— Bishop Milton Wright, father of Orville and Wilbur and Dayton flood survivor
The natural forces at work in late March 1913 created a near perfect storm which unleashed its awesome power over much of the middle and eastern United States. Several persistent low-pressure systems over the Rockies to the west and an equally persistent high-pressure system off the Atlantic Coast created a weather system that functioned much like a conveyor, bringing a deluge of water that would fall from the skies for nearly a week.
Powerful storms moved up the Mississippi River and Ohio River valleys, unleashing torrents of rain, powerful tornadoes and creating a monstrous storm system reaching from Oklahoma to New York. Ohio and Indiana were particularly hard hit. Rain fell in such an excess over the Ohio Valley that no river in Ohio, nor most of Indiana, remained in its banks. Many flood gauges along rivers in these two states still hold the March 1913 storms as the highest flood stages on record.
Bridges, roads, railways, dams and property were washed away. In its wake, at least 600 lost their lives, a quarter million people were left homeless and damages were estimated in the hundreds of millions, making it, at that time, one of the worst natural disasters the United States had witnessed.
In the wake of the 1913 storms — and lasting for weeks afterward — a ripple effect spread across the entire nation.
The damaged infrastructure paralyzed commerce in and out of the region. This affected people across the country, unlike previous disasters where impacts were primarily localized. As a result, there was a national outcry for state and federal governments to reevaluate their role in flood control.
An era of flood awareness followed immediately after the flood. Out of the chaos grew the demand for more protection, ultimately resulting in new dams, levees and floodwalls along communities hardest hit. This and future floods continued to expand the nation’s interest and investments in flood control. Today, those in emergency response realize how critical flood awareness and preparedness can be in reducing our threat to life and property in the face of future floods.
In the 112 years since the Great Flood of 1913, there have been great strides in reducing the threat to life and property from floods. In the weird, cyclical nature of the world, I now find myself working again in a field where stormwater awareness and an awareness of history can be beneficial knowledge worth sharing.
April is Stormwater Awareness Month. I hope you find this article both relevant and entertaining. Just the way all good stories should be told.
