A Flood Greater Than Noah's - The 1937 Ohio River Flood, Lawrenceburg, Indiana

It's been 79 years.  It was January, 1937.  The town of Lawrenceburg, Indiana, just west of Cincinnati, received between 6-12 inches of rain within the last week.  Add to that melting snow, and you have the recipe for disaster.

The heavy rains and the melting snow caused the Ohio River Basin, stretching from Pennsylvania to the Mississippi River to reach the highest levels recorded.  The river had peaked at around 65 feet in February, 1832 and 68 feet in the flood of 1883.  The follow year, the river crested at a little over 71 feet, leaving Lawrenceburg buried under more than 6 feet of water.  None of this compared to the disaster that Mother Nature and weak levees would bring in 1937, when the Ohio River crested at 82 feet and 6 inches.  Every home in Lawrenceburg, even those on high ground were submerged under several feet of muddy Ohio River water for over two weeks.

My mother was 16 at the time of the Ohio River Flood.  Her family was split up and sent to private homes outside the ravages of the flood waters to sit out the disaster. She remembers being sent by train with her mother to Indianapolis where they lived in the state fairgrounds until it was safe to come home. Her dad did not even know where they were until he saw a copy of a newspaper with their photo.  They were playing cards at the fairgrounds.  At least he finally knew where they were and that they were safe.  To the day she died, she hated eating rice, because that was about all they had to eat while they were in Indianapolis.

The flood destroyed most of the supply routes into town.  The B&O tracks were mangled like pieces of spaghetti and the main roads were washed out.  Supplies had to be trucked and then ferried to the city.  The Coast Guard was present to help with the rescue attempts, the Red Cross was overwhelmed with requests for aid and the local distilleries were turned into makeshift hospitals and eating/meeting places.  The muddy, unclean water of the Ohio reached the second floor of most lower lying homes and businesses.  Dysentery and water borne diseases were rampant.  There was one – only one – building was able to stay out of the water of the Great Flood—it was a filling station near the boundary of Lawrenceburg and Greendale. 

Finally, the waters receded enough for families to come home and inspect the damage.  Mom’s childhood home was destroyed and all of their belongings were destroyed.  They rebuilt on the same site and that house is still standing.  I grew up next to it. 

How do you put your life back together after everything you knew and loved was

destroyed?  How do you put the fear behind you every time there is a rainstorm or a warm stretch that melts the winter snow?  Tall, strong levees were built around the town to keep the muddy Ohio from repeating its assault.  As the years passed, the memory of the  ’37 Flood has faded and life has reached a new normal.   

Hopefully, that will be the last of the disasters that face the people of this sleepy Hoosier town.