Friday, March 28, 2014

THE FLOOD OF 1936...

It happens every year in New England.
We all get a little edgy up here in the spring when the winter snowmelt raises the water levels in our streams and rivers; if we’ve had a particularly cold and snowy season, we get positively squirrely—the combination of snowmelt and ice jams means one thing to us.
Flooding.

One way to ease the situation is to send Coast Guard icebreakers up the rivers to break up winter ice in the main channels. As of today, the Thunder Bay and the Tackle have already started working their way up the Kennebec River from Bath on the coast all the way up to the City of Gardiner, and the open access reduces the chance of flooding.

It’s a sure sign of spring up here, and we’re all delighted!

Memorable flood years for the Kennebec include 1826, 1870, 1896 and 1987, when the river rose 34 ft. above normal. I remember floating around in an old canoe in the parking lot of the local grocery store (which is around the corner from this street) during that flood.
There was a tiny liquor store in the same area; all the windows in the store broke, and set free hundreds of bottles of hooch—a rowboat full of guys armed with fishing nets had a wonderful time dipping for fifths of whiskey that bobbed in the floodwaters, although I remember more drinking than dipping. The ones they didn’t net went out with the tide and the floodwaters!

The photograph was taken in Gardiner, Maine on March 14, 1936 (photo courtesy of Gardiner Public Library). Some of the old timers used to tell stories about how everybody rushed downtown to help the merchants move their stock from the basements and first floors up to the higher levels whenever flood warnings were issued.

The Kennebec River flows just behind this row of storefronts, the Johnson Opera House sign is hanging off a building on the opposite side of the street. Most of the buildings in this photo are still standing; the old multi-windowed shoe factory in the background, though, is long gone.

20 comments:

  1. Yes it makes sense that people would help themselves rather than help out these days.

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    1. I have to say, Brett, that a lot of people collected things and saved them, returned them to original owners -- but the guys in the rowboat were pretty funny!

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  2. Fascinating. Icebreakers in the river. I would never have thought of that.

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    1. It's fun to see -- they creep up the rivers and break through up to a few feet of solid ice. It's definitely a sign of spring for us up here!

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  3. Interesting that both you and Wendy have focussed on floods in 1936, although in different states. It must have been a bad year for many people!

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    1. Well, the SS prompt talked about 1936 -- and that certainly was an awful year up here -- lots and lots of snow, thick ice on the rivers, and a sudden spring, so all the snow was melting at a rapid clip. That's a recipe for disaster if you live on a river!

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  4. Look at us -- both blogging about the Flood of 1936 from opposite ends of the eastern coast.

    Free liquor -- probably the only "good news" of the flood. It's nice to know people helped merchants move their goods to higher ground rather than just waiting for an opportunity for looting.

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    1. I think it's interesting that in 1936, people helped the merchants...but in 1987, there was a slightly different attitude! But those guys were sooo funny -- absolutely looped, rowing around the parking lot and singing!

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  5. I am lucky that I have never had to experience a flood.

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    1. They can be pretty scary! Those in Gardiner usually ended when the tide shifted (the Kennebec River is tidal up to Augusta) -- those high tides really added to the mess!

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  6. I don't know about things in your part of the world, but over here you might get the impression from watching the wall-to-wall news that flooding is a new phenomenon. It is timely to be reminded that rivers have always been liable to flooding and tides have always been high in certain conditions.

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    1. It's true, Alan...rivers in New England rise every spring, without fail! But most of the time, our river cities and towns are unscathed--built high enough above flood levels. It's when too much snowmelt, too much ice, and, in the case of Gardiner, a high tide all coincide!

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  7. A fascinating account of a horrible event that impacted so much on the community.

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    1. It happens with such frequency that we're usually prepared! But when all conditions are at their maximum, we have a beaut!

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  8. I missed the 1936 in the prompt, yet still wrote about a flood in 1934-5, almost there. It's hard to imagine such snow melts - we don't even get snow in Sydney!

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    1. I think the formula is: 11 inches of snow is equal to 1 inch of water (or something close to that). When all that snow melts, it really adds a lot of water to those rivers!

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    1. I remember being part of a book brigade during one spring when the flood warnings came out: about thirty people handed books to each other from the bottom floor to the second; the whole bookstore was saved in two hours!

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  10. A town nearby flooded in '86 and they had to bring in Army helicopters to get the citizens out. I still remember the nonstop flights over my home as they ferried the people from the flood to my town. For years we all watched the river rise and fall with anticipation that the flooding might be repeated. Now the poor river is so low that the salmon may not survive.

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  11. "Deb Gould" has been included in the A Sunday Drive for this week. Be assured that I hope this helps to point even more new visitors in your direction.

    http://asthecrackerheadcrumbles.blogspot.com/2014/04/a-sunday-drive.html

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