The Ohio River has been a blessing, but also, at times, a curse. As far as man can remember, it has gone on an occasional rampage. These floods became more widespread and devastating after civilization denuded the national forests.
The great flood of 1937 is the one most remembered by some people living in the valley today, but old-timers used to talk of the great “84 water,” which in many ways was more tragic and historically significant than the disaster of 1937.
There had been heavy rains and some flooding late in 1883, but in February 1884 the worst came. The Ohio River went out of its banks from Cincinnati to Cairo, Illinois – 400 miles of water sometimes 30 miles wide.
Union Township in Vanderburgh County was completely inundated. About 3 in the afternoon of Feb. 19, when the flood was at its highest, an ominous dark cloud rose out of the west, and within an hour a howling storm struck.
Some have described it as a cyclone, but more likely it was just an unusually severe gale, because the winds continued to blow with terrific force throughout most of the night.
The floodwaters were lashed into towering whitecaps that battered the weakened buildings from their foundations and uprooted trees, sending them to be swept away by the current.
Caseyville, Ky., was another scene of terror. Buildings weakened by the flood were driven off their foundations by the wind and crashed into one another, causing them all to all go down together. Even a large number of brick buildings collapsed, such as the large store owned by K. Eberley & Company. All of its contents, including hardware, stoves, tinware, etc., were lost.
Three men – Henry Schulle, Henry Heine and Charles Eberley – were in the store at the time. Schulle and Eberley managed to escape unhurt, buh Heine was caught in the current and disappeared. Fortunately, two neighbors manged to pluck him from the torrent and he was saved.
In those days there were no motorized boats except the cumbersome paddle-wheelers. There were no airlifts or helicopter rescue squads. There was not even any way to call for help because no homes yet had a telephone. Consequently, many people, especially in the rural areas, remained marooned on rooftops for several days in the February cold without food or shelter.
Only three years before this great flood, a young woman in Massachusetts named Clara Barton had organized the American Red Cross and had been elected its first president.
When the word of what was happening in the Ohio Valley reached the East Coast, Miss Barton set out immediately to see what she could do to help the victims. She chose Evansville as the place to set up her base of operations. During her stay here she lived as a guest at the home of Major and Mrs. Byron Parsons at 604 Mary Street.
On the morning after the great storm, Miss Barton chartered the steamboat Josh V. Throp for $60 a day and loaded it from bow to stern with donations of fuel, food and clothing. Under the strange new white flag with a big red cross in the center, she set off down the river and wove from side to side putting off boxes and barrels of supplies and taking on board the sick and injured. Five days after she left the Evansville waterfront she reached Cairo. This voyage went down in history as the first major disaster relief ever attempted by the Red Cross.
