CATASTROPHE: Hell & High Water

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Thursday at n p. m. City Manager Frank Sheehan ordered sirens and factory whistles to be sounded and sewers were opened in the lower sections of Portsmouth so that the town could flood itself in self-defense. The National Guard and other relief agencies began sending 25,000 inhabitants to Chillicothe and Columbus. "The Bottoms'' of Cincinnati is the wholesale and tenement district from which the rest of the town, perched like Rome on seven hills, lifts the hem of its municipal garment. Last week, after an unprecedented rainfall of ten in. in ten days, as the river stage went to 71, then 73, then 78 ft., The Bottoms was under from one to 20 ft. of water. Schools in the rest of town were closed so 40,000 homeless could be bedded, fed and inoculated against typhoid. Not all The Bottoms' occupants got away safely. A house with five screaming people in it went sailing down the Ohio as onlookers stood helpless on the bank. The Norfolk & Western abandoned service when floods east of the city washed out the right of way at Clear Creek, near the Little Miami River. Other lines were soon out of commission because the fine new Union Station is in old Mill Creek Valley and tracks were deeply submerged. An even greater danger threatened the waterfront when oil tanks in Mill Creek Valley tore loose from their foundations, began floating around and slopping their fluid on the rising waters.

Somehow a fire started and at week's end Cincinnati's firemen, police, citizens and even workhouse inmates were fighting not only flood but fire on a two-mile front. By vote of the city council. City Manager C. A. Dykstra was given dictatorial powers to deal with the situation as he thought best. Property damage: $5,000,000. Indiana. Evansville, Funnyman Joe Cook's hometown, was made base of the Coast Guard's relief forces. While 40 horses were rescued from the Dade Park race track, amphibians roared in from the Atlantic coast and radio-equipped surf boats arrived from the Chicago station. Indianapolis diked itself in after a body was seen floating down the White River. Kentucky's Green, Kentucky and other rivers, fed by continuing downpours, were still rising at week's end. Louisville was the hardest hit city in the whole flood area. Sitting on comparatively level ground where the Ohio drops 26 ft. in two mi., Louisville watched its west end sink under the yellow torrent which drove 200,000 from their homes. Telephone service was disrupted. The city was put on a two-hour water ration each day. As sewage backed up in the municipal disposal system, two typhoid inoculation stations were established. Bus and trolley service was abandoned and only the Southern Ry. continued running out of town. Electric generating plants by the river faltered, then quit on Sunday night, plunging a city of 330,000 into darkness. All police were put on 24-hr, duty and companies of National Guardsmen were sent to help them keep the peace. With the water rising 2 ft. an hour and the rain still falling, Governor Albert Benjamin ("Happy'') Chandler telephoned President Roosevelt that the emergency had reached such proportions that Federal troops were needed. For stricken Louisville he declared martial law. The whole nation was given front row seats at the Ohio valley's tragedy through Louisville radio station WHAS.