INTRODUCTION

 

Three large air masses, one full of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, another from Canada, and a third traveling across the Great Plains, converged over the Miami Valley in March 1913.  There it released nine to eleven inches of rain over a land already saturated with melted snow and previous rainfall.  Spread over an area as large as the Miami Valley this became the equivalent of four trillion gallons of water cascading over the land and through Dayton, releasing in five days what would normally flow over the Niagara Falls in a month.

            The water had no choice but to flow into the Great Miami River, already swollen beyond its banks, which met with Stillwater and Mad rivers and Wolf Creek at Dayton.

            On March 25, 1913 after four days of rain, the river finally

overflowed the protecting levees.  Slowly at first, then with ever increasing speed, the freezing waters of the Great Miami River began filling the streets of the city.  Soon, the brackish, yellow river water was traveling through Dayton at twenty-five miles an hour, carrying with it everything in its path.

            People were trapped in their homes, some having to resort to climbing onto roofs to escape the ever-rising waters.  Heat was out of the question, for fear of beginning a fire due to escaping gas.  Food was scarce; most of it becoming ruined when the river waters flooded the first floors.  Ironically, clean drinking water was even harder to find. 

            Fires broke out in several locations.  Businesses located on both sides of Third near Jefferson street were completely destroyed.

            It took three days for the waters to recede... and years for the city to completely recover.

 

Return to "Through Flood, Through Fire" Home Page