Washed Away: How the Great Flood of 1913, America's Most Widespread Natural Disaster, Terrorized a Nation and Changed It Forever
Of the major natural catastrophes of the early twentieth century, the Great Flood of 1913 is one of the least remembered. Over several days in March of that year, heavy rains with fierce winds and tornadoes caused severe flooding in 14 states. Before the storm abated, rain turned to snow. Every major river east of the Mississippi rose, many bridges washed away, and fallen telegraph and telephone lines isolated towns and cities in need of outside help. Hundreds of people died between Nebraska and Vermont from drowning, fires, freezing temperatures, accidents, and suicide. Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania were the hardest-hit states. Williams weaves tragic and heroic stories of people in the various affected states into an almost hour-by-hour account of the deadly storm. This quick-reading history published for the storm’s centennial should interest readers who enjoyed Erik Larson’s Isaac’s Storm (1999), about the Galveston hurricane of 1900, or Simon Winchester’s A Crack in the Edge of the World (2005), about the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. --Rick Roche