The
Great Dayton Flood of 1913 flooded
Dayton, OhioDayton is a city in and the county seat of Montgomery County, Ohio, United States, in the southwestern part of the state. The population was 166,179 at the 2000 census. The Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 848,153 in the 2000 census. Dayton is the fourth largest...
, and the surrounding area with water from the
Great Miami RiverThe Great Miami River is a tributary of the Ohio River, approximately long, in southwestern Ohio in the United States.The Great Miami flows through Dayton, Piqua, Troy, and Sidney....
, causing the greatest natural disaster in
OhioOhio is a Midwestern state of the United States. The thirty-fourth largest state by area in the U.S., it is the seventh-most populous with nearly 11.5 million residents...
history. In response, Ohio passed the Vonderheide Act to allow the Ohio state government to form the
Miami Conservancy DistrictThe Miami Conservancy District is a river management agency operating in Southwest Ohio to control flooding of the Great Miami River and its tributaries. It was organized in 1914 following the catastrophic flood of the Great Miami River in March 1913, which hit Dayton, Ohio, particularly hard,...
, one of the first major
floodA flood is an overflow or accumulation of an expanse of water that submerges land. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide....
control districts in Ohio and the United States.
This also inflicted a domino series of events, resulting in a further disruption.
The flood was created by a series of three winter storms that hit the region in March 1913. Within three days, 8-11 inches of rain fell throughout the Great Miami River
watershedA drainage basin is an extent of land where water from rain or snow melt drains downhill into a body of water, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea or ocean...
on frozen ground, resulting in more than 90%
runoffSurface runoff is the water flow which occurs when soil is infiltrated to full capacity and excess water, from rain, snowmelt, or other sources flows over the land. This is a major component of the hydrologic cycle. Runoff that occurs on surfaces before reaching a channel is also called a nonpoint...
that caused the river and its
tributariesA tributary is a stream or river which flows into a main stem river. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea. Tributaries and the mainstem river serve to drain the surrounding drainage basin of its surface water and groundwater by leading the water out into an ocean or some other large body...
to overflow. The existing series of
leveeA levee, levée, dike , embankment, floodbank or stopbank is a natural or artificial slope or wall to regulate water levels...
s failed, and downtown Dayton experienced flooding up to deep. This flood is still the flood of record for the Great Miami River watershed, and the amount of water that passed through the river channel during this storm equals the flow over Niagara Falls each month.
The Miami River watershed covers nearly and of channel that feeds into the Ohio River.
Other cities across Ohio experienced flooding from these storms, but not as extensive as the cities of
DaytonDayton is a city in and the county seat of Montgomery County, Ohio, United States, in the southwestern part of the state. The population was 166,179 at the 2000 census. The Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 848,153 in the 2000 census. Dayton is the fourth largest...
,
PiquaPiqua is a city in Miami County, Ohio, United States. The population was 20,738 at the 2000 census...
,
TroyTroy is a city in Miami County, Ohio, United Statesand is also the skidmark of ohio. The population was 21,999 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Miami County and is part of the Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area....
, and
HamiltonHamilton is a city in Butler County, southwestern Ohio, United States. The population was 60,690 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Butler County. The city is near the metropolitan areas of Cincinnati and Dayton....
along the Great Miami River.
Background conditions
Dayton was founded along the Great Miami River at the convergence of its three tributaries,
Stillwater RiverThe Stillwater River is a tributary of the Great Miami River, approximately 65 mi long in western Ohio in the United States. Via the Great Miami and Ohio Rivers, it is part of the Mississippi River watershed....
,
Mad RiverThe Mad River is a stream located in the west central part of the U.S. state of Ohio. It flows nearly 60 miles from Logan County, to downtown Dayton, where it meets the Great Miami River. The stream flows southwest from its source near Campbell Hill through West Liberty, along U.S...
, and
Wolf Creek-Muskingum River tributary:Wolf Creek is a tributary of the Muskingum River. It consists of two forks, the muddy fork which begins toward Barlow, Ohio and the Clear Fork which begins toward Chesterhill, Ohio. The clear fork has interesting white water with a ledge called Chipmunk Falls and several...
. The four rivers converge within one mile (1.6 km) along the river channel near the city’s central business district. When Israel Ludlow laid out Dayton in 1795, the local Native Americans warned him about the recurring flooding. Prior to the 1913 flood, the Dayton area experienced major floods nearly every decade, with major water flows in 1805, 1828, 1847, 1866, and 1898. Most of downtown Dayton lies in the Great Miami River’s natural
flood plain||-||-||-||-||-||-||-||}A floodplain, or flood plain, is flat or nearly flat land adjacent to a stream or river that experiences occasional or periodic flooding...
.
1913 storm timeline
The following events took place between March 21 and 26 in 1913.
- Friday, March 21, 1913
- The first storm arrives with strong winds with temperatures at 60 degrees.
- Saturday, March 22, 1913
- The area experiences a sunny day until the second storm arrives, dropping temperatures to the 20s causing the ground to freeze.
- Sunday, March 23, 1913 (Easter Sunday)
- The third storm brings rain to the entire Ohio River
The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. It is approximately 981 miles long and is located in the eastern United States....
valley area. The saturated and frozen land can’t absorb any more water, and nearly all of the rain becomes runoff that flows into the Great Miami River and its tributaries.
- March 24, 1913
- 7:00 am - After a day and night of heavy rains with precipitation
In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that is deposited on the Earth's surface. The main forms of precipitation include rain, snow, ice pellets, and graupel...
between 8-11 inches, the river reaches its high stage for the year at and continues to rise.
- March 25, 1913
- Midnight - The Dayton Police are warned that the Herman Street levee was weakening and they start the warning sirens and alarms.
- 5:30 am - The City Engineer, Gaylord Cummin, reports that water is at the top of the levees and is flowing at 100,000 cubic feet per second, an unprecedented rate.
- 6:00 am - Water overflowing the levees begins to appear in the city streets.
- 8:00 am - The levees on the south side of the downtown business district fail and flooding begins downtown.
- Water levels continue to rise throughout the day.
- March 26, 1913
- 1:30 am - The waters crest, reaching up to deep in the downtown area.
- Later that morning, a gas explosion downtown near the intersection of 5th Street and Wilkinson starts a fire that destroys most of a city block. The open gas lines were responsible for several fires throughout the city. The fire department was unable to reach the fires and many additional buildings were lost.
Clean up effort
The
Ohio Governor James M. CoxJames Middleton Cox was a Governor of Ohio, U.S. Representative from Ohio and Democratic candidate for President of the United States in the election of 1920.Cox was born in the tiny Butler County, Ohio, village of Jacksonburg...
sent
Ohio National GuardThe Ohio National Guard comprises:* Ohio Army National Guard* Ohio Air National Guard...
troops to protect property and life, and support the recovery efforts. The ONG was not able to reach the city for several days because of the high water conditions throughout the state. They built refugee camps using tents for people permanently or temporarily displaced from their homes.
During this time,
John H. PattersonJohn Henry Patterson was an industrialist and founder of the National Cash Register Company. He was a businessperson and salesperson.-Pioneering business practices:...
, a local businessman who ran the
National Cash Register (NCR)NCR Corporation is a technology company specializing in products for the retail, financial, travel, healthcare, food service, entertainment, gaming and public sector industries. Its main products are self-service kiosks, point-of-sale terminals, automated teller machines, check processing...
company, led the recovery efforts. NCR employees built nearly 300 flat-bottomed boats and Patterson organized rescue teams to save the thousands of people stranded on roofs and the upper stories of buildings. He turned the NCR factory on Stewart Street into an emergency shelter providing food and lodging, and he organized local doctors and nurses to provide medical care. Initial access was provided by the Dayton, Lebanon and Cincinnati Railroad and Terminal Company, the only line not affected by the flood.
Aftermath
As the water receded, the damages were assessed in the Dayton area.
- More than 360 people died.
- Nearly 65,000 people were displaced.
- Approximately 20,000 homes were destroyed.
- Buildings were moved off their foundations, and debris in the moving water damaged other structures.
- Property damage to homes and businesses, including factories and railroads, were over $100,000,000 (in 1913 dollars or over $2,000,000,000 in today’s dollars).
- Nearly 1,400 horses and 2,000 other domestic animals died.
The clean up and rebuilding efforts took approximately one year to repair the flood damage. The economic impacts of the flood took most of a decade to recover.
Miami Conservancy District creation
Rather than accept defeat from the flood, the people of the Dayton area were determined to prevent a future disaster of this magnitude. Lead by Patterson’s vision for a managed watershed district, on March 27, 1913, Governor Cox appointed people to the Dayton Citizens Relief Commission. In May, the commission conducted a 10-day fundraiser which collected over $2,000,000 (in 1913 dollars) to fund the flood control effort. They hired
hydrological engineerHydrology is the study of the movement, distribution, and quality of water throughout Earth, and thus addresses both the hydrologic cycle and water resources...
Arthur MorganArthur Ernest Morgan was a civil engineer, U.S. administrator, and educator. He was the design engineer for the Miami Conservancy District flood control system and oversaw construction. He served as the president of Antioch College between 1920 and 1936...
from
St. Cloud, MinnesotaSt. Cloud is a city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and the largest population center in the state's central region. The population was 59,107 at the 2000 census, while 2007 census estimates show it growing to 66,948, making it the third largest city in the state outside the Twin Cities...
who later worked on flood plain projects in
Pueblo, ColoradoPueblo is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Pueblo County, Colorado, United States. The population was estimated to be 104,951 in 2008, making it the 245th most populous city in the United States....
and the
Tennessee Valley AuthorityThe Tennessee Valley Authority is a federally owned corporation in the United States created by congressional charter in May 1933 to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development in the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly impacted...
, to come up with an extensive plan to protect Dayton from future floods.
Morgan hired nearly 50 engineers to analyze the Miami Valley watershed, precipitation patterns, and determine the flood volume. They analyzed European flood data for information about general flooding patterns. Based on this analysis, Morgan presented eight different flood control plans to the City of Dayton officials in October 1913. In the end, the city selected a plan based on the flood control system in the
Loire ValleyLoire Valley is known as the Garden of France and the Cradle of the French Language. It is also noteworthy for the quality of its architectural heritage, in its historic towns such as Amboise, Angers, Blois, Chinon, Nantes, Orléans, Saumur, and Tours, but in particular for its world-famous...
in
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
, consisting of five earthen dams and modifications to the river channel through Dayton. The dams would have conduits to release a limited amount of water, and a wider river channel would use larger levees supported by a series of training levees. In addition, flood storage areas behind the dams would be used as farmland between floods. Morgan’s goal was to develop a flood plan that would handle 140% of the water from the 1913 flood. The analysis had determined the river channel boundaries for the expected 1,000 year major floods, and all business located in that area would be relocated.
With the support of Governor Cox, Dayton attorney John McMahon worked on drafting the Vonderheide Act or the Ohio Conservancy Law in 1914. The Act allowed local governments to define conservancy districts for flood control. Controversial elements of the Act gave local governments the right to raise funds for the civil engineering efforts through taxes, and granted eminent domain to support the purchase or condemnation of the necessary lands for dams, basins, and flood plains. The Ohio legislature passed the Act in 1914 and within days after Governor Cox signed it into law, the
Miami Conservancy DistrictThe Miami Conservancy District is a river management agency operating in Southwest Ohio to control flooding of the Great Miami River and its tributaries. It was organized in 1914 following the catastrophic flood of the Great Miami River in March 1913, which hit Dayton, Ohio, particularly hard,...
was created with Morgan appointed as its first president.
The constitutionality of the Act was challenged by a lawsuit brought by a landowner impacted by eminent domain in Orr v. Allen, and attempts were made to amend it through the Garver-Quinlisk bills. The legal battles continued from 1915-1919 and reached the
US Supreme CourtThe Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States, and leads the federal judiciary. It consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight Associate Justices, who are nominated by the President and confirmed with the "advice and consent" of the Senate...
, but in the end, the law was upheld.
Since its inception, the Miami Conservancy District has protected the region from flooding over 1,500 times. Ongoing expenses for maintaining the district comes from property tax assessments collected annually from all property holders in the district. Properties closer to the river channel and the natural flood plain pay more than properties further away.
Osborn, Ohio
Ironically, the small village of
Osborn, OhioOsborn was a town located near the Haddix Road-Ohio 235 intersection at the northern edge of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in what is now the flood-prone basin of the Huffman Dam in the U.S. state of Ohio....
which had little damage from the flood, was the city most affected by the flood’s aftermath. The village lay in the area designated to become part of the Huffman flood plain. The mainlines of the
Erie RailroadThe Erie Railroad was a railroad that operated in New York State, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, originally connecting New York City with Lake Erie...
, the
New York Central RailroadThe New York Central Railroad , known simply as the New York Central in its publicity, was a railroad operating in the Northeastern United States...
, and the Ohio Electric railway tracks running through Osborn were moved several miles south to run through
Fairfield, OhioOsborn was a town located near the Haddix Road-Ohio 235 intersection at the northern edge of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in what is now the flood-prone basin of the Huffman Dam in the U.S. state of Ohio....
.
The citizens of Osborn decided to move their homes instead of abandoning them, and almost 400 homes were moved three miles (5 km) to new foundations along Hebble Creek next to Fairfield. Some years later, the two towns merged to create
Fairborn, OhioFairborn is a city in Greene County, Ohio, United States, near Dayton and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The population was 32,052 at the 2000 census...
with the name selected to reflect the merging of the two villages.
Historical losses
Orville and Wilbur WrightThe Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur , were two Americans who are generally credited with inventing and building the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight, on December 17, 1903...
, who made their home in Dayton, had flown for the first time a decade earlier, and were busy creating the aviation industry in their workshop and the area around
Huffman PrairieHuffman Prairie, also known as Huffman Prairie Flying Field or Huffman Field is part of Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park...
, adjacent to the planned
Huffman DamThe Miami Conservancy District is a river management agency operating in Southwest Ohio to control flooding of the Great Miami River and its tributaries. It was organized in 1914 following the catastrophic flood of the Great Miami River in March 1913, which hit Dayton, Ohio, particularly hard,...
. They had meticulously documented the flight efforts using a camera, and had an extensive collection of photographic plates. One unexpected loss in the flood was water damage which created cracks and blemishes on the photographic plates. Prints made from the plates prior to the flood were better quality than the prints made after the flood. However not too many prints had been made off of the glass negatives before 1913 as the Wrights kept evidence of their pioneering work a secret from a skeptical and suspicious public and the images, if all had been lost, were irreplaceable.
By this time, there were few
canalCanals are artificial channels for water. There are two types of canal: aqueduct canals are used for the conveyance and delivery of water, and waterway canals are navigable transportation canals used for passage of goods and people, often connected to existing lakes, rivers, or oceans.The word...
s in Ohio still in operation, but many of them remained intact across the state. To alleviate flooding conditions, local government leaders used dynamite to remove the locks in the canals to allow the water to flow unimpeded. This destruction ended the era of canal transportation in Ohio history.
See also
- Disaster Books - The Great Dayton Flood
- 1913 Omaha Easter Sunday tornado
External links