{"id":12669,"date":"2012-01-19T17:35:08","date_gmt":"2012-01-19T21:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/?p=12669"},"modified":"2012-01-19T17:37:31","modified_gmt":"2012-01-19T21:37:31","slug":"ucs-commitment-to-community-was-significant-during-the-great-flood-of-37-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/2012\/01\/ucs-commitment-to-community-was-significant-during-the-great-flood-of-37-2\/","title":{"rendered":"UC's Commitment to Community Was Significant During the Great Flood of '37"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Dawn Fuller<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0As Cincinnati marks the 75th year of the greatest flood to ravage this area, UC Archives reveal the university\u2019s volunteer efforts and personal accounts in a university president\u2019s diary.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the battle in which our city waged against the greatest flood in the history of the Ohio Valley, the University of Cincinnati has done its duty.\u201d<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 UC President Raymond Walters, in a February 1937 letter to The News Record student newspaper.<\/p>\n

The Great Flood of 1937 was never seen before in this area and has never been seen since. Record rains, followed by surging floodwaters, led to catastrophes that included fires and explosions on the Ohio River in Cincinnati and left behind massive destruction, power outages and, ironically, outages of clean, drinkable water. The local damage alone in 1937 was reported at $20 million ($300 million in current value). More than 50,000 people were reported to be homeless.<\/p>\n

View “1937 Flood in Cincinnati – Historical Home Movie Footage”<\/a><\/p>\n

The Ohio River\u2019s flood level in Cincinnati is 52 feet. The river crested at nearly 80 feet on Jan. 26, 1937.<\/p>\n

\"Cincinnati<\/a>

Cincinnati Business District: Second and Walnut Streets<\/p><\/div>\n

Geologically speaking, the flood was a larger natural disaster than Hurricane Katrina, according to UC Geology Professor Barry Maynard. \u201cOn average if you looked at several hundred years of records, this would be greater than the 100-year event, that is, it had a less than one-percent chance of happening,\u201d Maynard explains. \u201cCincinnati\u2019s current flood control structures are designed for an 80-feet height as a direct result of this flood.\u201d<\/p>\n

The University of Cincinnati\u2019s role in this historic flood is stored in University Archives, in the minutes of the Board of Directors (now called the Board of Trustees), The News Record student newspaper, and the personal diaries of Raymond Walters, who served as UC president from 1932-1955.<\/p>\n

\u00a0UC President Raymond Walters\u2019 Personal Reports<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The archives report that the city (and the university) shut down from Jan. 23-Feb. 8.<\/p>\n

On Jan. 22, 1937, UC President Raymond Walters turned to his diary after returning home from a snowstorm. The passage reads, \u201cThis has been a day of increasing damage, danger and nervous strain in the flooded areas of the Middle West. Radio broadcasts every hour at least and often at briefer intervals told the story of destruction and rescue. It is the highest flood in the history of the Ohio River.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCincinnati is not to be under martial law, unless, as Mayor Wilson has just stated on the radio, \u2018Something now unforeseen should occur,\u2019\u201d President Walters wrote in his diary on Jan. 25.<\/p>\n

\"Raymond<\/a>

Raymond Walters<\/p><\/div>\n

There were reports that nearly 70 percent of the city of Louisville was under water. \u201cThe misery of Louisville is pathetic,\u201d President Walters wrote in his diary on Jan. 26, 1937. \u201cOver 230,000 of its inhabitants, two-thirds of the entire population, are homeless. Having lived at Louisville for a short time during the war, I feel a special sense of sympathy for its soft-spoken citizens.\u201d During World War I, Walters was captain of a field officers\u2019 artillery school in Louisville.<\/p>\n

On Jan. 30, Walters wrote that his entire family received typhoid shots at Holmes Hospital that afternoon, and that the river had dropped to 75 feet.<\/p>\n

He wrote on Feb. 2 that the river had dropped to 66 feet, \u201cbut that I can assure you, still has menace in its swollen brown face.\u201d President Walters also mentioned that the city was expected to have its power and water back by the end of that week. \u201cI arranged today to hire glass containers for distilled water to be made available to the students in all our university buildings,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo our extreme delight, water flowed from our faucets when we rose this morning,\u201d Walters wrote on Feb. 3. \u201cThe city water department had made unexpectedly good progress in drying out the East End plant equipment.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Walters donated his diaries to UC Archives after he left office in 1955. He died in 1970.<\/p>\n

A Special Obligation<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Second<\/a>

A view of Second Street, from the Suspension Bridge<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cMembers of the municipal university have a special obligation to foster and to practice good citizenship,\u201d stated President Raymond Walters in his Feb. 16, 1937 memorandum to the UC Board of Directors. \u201cTo the record attained in times of peace and quiet is now added this manifestation of good citizenship in a time of peril and disorder. We are proud of the students, teachers, administrative officers and alumni of the university who volunteered promptly and who performed faithfully in the recent catastrophe.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Board of Directors minutes detailed five key areas where UC administrators, faculty, students and staff sprang into action to ease the great suffering of the Great Flood:<\/p>\n