Ohio River flood of 1937

==Aftermath and reconstruction==
[[File:1937 flood Shawneetown Illinois refugees.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Members of a refugee family left homeless by the flood in Shawneetown, Illinois]]
[[File:Central Station (Louisvile, Kentucky).jpg|thumb|right|260px|Louisville's [[Central Station (Louisville)|Central Station]], flooded]]

===Media response===
A handful of powerhouse [[AM Broadcasting|radio]] stations, including [[WLW]] Cincinnati and [[WHAS (AM)|WHAS]] Louisville, quickly switched to non-stop news coverage, transmitting commercial-free for weeks.  These broadcasts consisted mostly of messages being relayed to rescue crews, as many civil agencies had no other means of communication. The [[American scene painting|Regionalist]] painter [[Thomas Hart Benton (painter)|Thomas Hart Benton]] was commissioned by ''[[The Kansas City Star]]'' and ''[[St. Louis Post-Dispatch]]'' newspapers to provide sketches depicting the miserable conditions of the flooded areas in the [[Missouri Bootheel]] region.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/21026/lot/13/|title=Bonhams : Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975) Study for "Spring on the Missouri" 9 x 12in|work=bonhams.com|access-date=August 10, 2015}}</ref>

When it became obvious that the river would cut the electric power to radio station WHAS—thus cutting the last radio voice in Louisville—the rival clear channel station in Nashville, [[WSM (AM)|WSM]], picked up WHAS's broadcast via telephone and broadcast emergency flood reports for three days for the lower Ohio River.  Other stations across the country did much the same.

Around January 18, Huntington, WV radio station WSAZ (1190 AM) began hourly broadcasts of flood related news. On January 22, the station received permission from the Federal Communications Committee to broadcast around the clock. 
The studios and offices in the downtown [[Keith-Albee Theatre]] Building became a regional communications center. They established direct telephonic communication with the city's general relief headquarters in City Hall with Red Cross, the Naval Reserve, the American Legion, the police and fire departments, and the Coast Guard. 
Messages of inquiry concerning the safety of friends and relatives, warnings of rising gasoline-covered waters, appeals for help from marooned victims, orders to relief agencies and workers poured into the cramped studios and quickly broadcast. 
Staff and local volunteers stayed on the air and provided information and support for nine days until 8:00 o'clock the following Sunday night, Jan. 31, when the station's regular schedule was resumed.<ref>{{Cite web|title=History of WSAZ/WGNT/WRVC, Huntington, West Virginia|url=https://jeff560.tripod.com/wsaz1.html|access-date=2021-01-30|website=jeff560.tripod.com}}</ref>

===Government response===
In January 1937, the [[U.S. Army Corps of Engineers]], District Engineer, MAJ Bernard Smith dispatched an entire fleet down the [[Cumberland River]] for rescue and relief work in response to the severe flooding. The bridges were too low to allow the vessels to pass under, so the vessels were forced to steam across farmland and bridge approaches, dodging telephone and power lines.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.lrn.usace.army.mil/history/dates_in_history.htm |title=Dates In History |publisher=Lrn.usace.army.mil |access-date=August 13, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120531161959/http://www.lrn.usace.army.mil/history/dates_in_history.htm |archive-date=May 31, 2012 |df=mdy-all }}</ref>

The federal government under President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] sent thousands of area WPA workers to the affected cities to aid in rescue and recovery. It also sent supplies for food and temporary housing, and millions of dollars in aid after the floodwaters receded.

The scale of the 1937 flood was so unprecedented that civic and industrial groups lobbied national authorities to create a comprehensive plan for flood control. The plan involved creating more than seventy storage reservoirs to reduce [[Ohio River]] flood heights. Not fully completed by the [[United States Army Corps of Engineers|Army Corps of Engineers]] until the early 1940s, the new facilities have drastically reduced flood damages since.

In the 1930s, the [[Tennessee Valley Authority]] sought to create a continuous minimum 9-foot (2.7 m) channel along the entirety of the [[Tennessee River]] from [[Paducah, Kentucky|Paducah]] to [[Knoxville]]. The Authority also sought to help control flooding on the lower [[Mississippi River]], especially in the aftermath of the Ohio River flood of 1937, as research had shown that 4% of the water in the lower Mississippi River originates in the Tennessee River watershed. TVA surveyed the lower part of the river and considered the Aurora Landing site, but eventually settled on the present site at river mile 22.4. The [[Kentucky Dam]] project was authorized on May 23, 1938, and construction began July 1, 1938.<ref>Tennessee Valley Authority, The Kentucky Project: A Comprehensive Report on the Planning, Design, Construction, and Initial Operations of the Kentucky Project, Technical Report No. 13 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1951), pp. 1–12, 68, 115–116, 509.</ref>

Much of the work of the Tennessee Valley Authority in the Tennessee River basin was strongly supported by the majority of the citizens in western [[Kentucky]] and their representatives in the [[United States Congress]]. U.S. Sen. [[Alben W. Barkley]] of Paducah and U.S. Rep. [[William Voris Gregory|William Gregory]] from [[Mayfield, Kentucky|Mayfield]] and his brother U.S. Rep. [[Noble Gregory]] from Mayfield who succeeded him in office strongly supported the funding of TVA and its role in addressing flood control, soil conservation, family relocation, recreation, production of electricity, and economic development.<ref>Kleber, John E., ed (1992). "Tennessee Valley Authority", p.875. The Kentucky Encyclopedia. Associate editors: [[Thomas D. Clark]], Lowell H. Harrison, and James C. Klotter. [[Lexington, Kentucky]]: The University Press of Kentucky. {{ISBN|0813117720}}.</ref>