This day marked the beginning of the Great St. Patrick’s Day flood of 1936, the worst flood in the history of the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Other areas of the Mid-Atlantic on both sides of the Eastern Continental Divide were also affected.On March 16, 1936, warmer-than-normal temperatures and torrential rain followed a cold and snowy winter, leading to the rapid melting of snow and ice on the upper Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. They and their tributaries were already over their banks and were threatening the city of Pittsburgh. On Tuesday, March 17, the waters reached flood stage of 25 feet. Heavy rains overnight caused the waters to rise quickly, and on March 18, the water peaked at about 46 feet, 21 feet above flood stage.
The impact to the city was devastating. Total property damage was estimated at between $150 – 250 million (as high as $5.87 billion today). Steel mills that were located around the three rivers suffered devastating damage and 60,000 steel workers within a thirty-mile radius were out of work due to the damage that the mills suffered. Sixty five percent of the downtown business district had been under water from the Point all the way up to Grant Street.
The flood eventually led to calls for the construction of a dam upstream on the Allegheny to prevent future floods of this magnitude. Laws providing for the construction of the dam were passed in 1936 and 1938, but it would take nearly three decades, and a bitter fight with the Seneca Nation of Indians, before the Kinzua Dam was finally completed in 1965.
The Potomac and James Rivers, across the continental divide from the Ohio and its tributaries, also suffered severe flooding during mid-March 1936.[3] Potomac River crossings at Harpers Ferry and Shepherdstown, both in West Virginia, and Hancock and Point of Rocks, both in Maryland, were all destroyed. Great Falls experienced what were, as of July 2014, its highest floods on record. Washington, DC, saw its airport, Washington-Hoover Airport in Arlington, Virginia, flooded.
Washington, DC, experienced floods, including at Navy Yard on the Anacostia River.
Clear instructions are always good…
A BARGAIN!!!
Today is the birthday, in 1954, of American guitarist, singer and songwriter, Nancy Wilson who with her sister Ann Wilson as a part of Heart had the 1986 US No.1 single ‘These Dreams’, (with Nancy on lead which became Heart’s first No.1 single) and the 1987 US No.1 & UK No.3 single ‘Alone’. Heart is considered the first hard rock band fronted by women to achieve widespread commercial success. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeMvMNpvB5M
