News reports on the scene during the great Ohio and Mississippi River floods of 1937.
May 12, 2011

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When the rains came.


With the news the past several days about the epic floods going on throughout the area of the Mississippi River, and reports citing this as the worst flooding since the Great Flood of 1937, I thought it would be fitting to run those on-the-scene reports, some of the first of their kind in broadcast history, during the great Ohio and Mississippi River Floods from January 23-25, 1937. The damage and loss of life was no doubt greater in 1937 than it is today, mostly because our warning systems are a lot more sophisticated now than they were in 1937. But the destruction loss and urgency of the moment are very much the same.

Here is a one hour rundown of the Great Flood as it happened between January 23rd and 25th 1937 via various NBC Red and Blue Network Radio outlets in Illinois, Ohio and Tennessee.

History, as you've noticed, repeats and repeats often.

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