No women wore “big hoop skirts” in 1936. They didn’t wear small hoop skirts either, or any hoop skirts at all. They went out of fashion soon after the civil war. The Heinz History Center should know better!
I am from a town south of Pittsburgh on the Monongahela River. Every few years the river flooded into parts of the town. I saw that the 1936 flood happened in March. Yes, that is the critical period because of existing mountain snow and ice in the watershed. If a significant rain event happened with warming temperatures, the rivers would rise significantly in just a few hours.
My father remembered going to the building my grandfather;s office was in a rowboat and climbing through a second story window to gwt inside . He would have been about 14 years old at the time.
Using inflation calculators for natural disasters such as this are misleading by underestimating the damages the same event would cause today by orders of magnitude. For example, this flood did $250M in damages in 1936 which converts to $5B today or 20x. The calculators are fine for things such as cost of living but do not take into consideration the density, expansion, public infrastructure, property value increases, construction codes and costs, number of automobiles, number of people, amount of developed land acreage, etc. For example, the California flood of 1861-62 which forced the state capital to be moved from Sacramento to San Francisco for two years, caused $100M in damages, and killed 4000 people (1% of the population). Using an inflation calculator this would put the California damage amount at $3.5B (35x) in today's dollars. However, the real estate values alone in the affected areas have been estimated at nearly $1 trillion. Now add in automobiles, bridges, sewers, roads, etc. and it isn't hard to see my point that a similar event today would likely cause damages that are 10,000x the costs of 1861, not 35x. Also, 1% of the population today would equal 400,000 people killed vs. 4000 in 1861 California. I'm not an expert by any means but this is what I see as the reality and scale of past disasters vs. today's.
Yeah, and Pennsylvanians are still paying a tax on their alcohol for the Johnstown Flood. 18% hidden tax! 😂 Pa corruption is dastardly in its inventiveness. So much revenue to this day. If I lived in Johnstown I’d be “peacefully protesting “ for my city’s reparations! The money collected since should have that town literally curbed in gold and lit with Tiffany street lights FJB
Appreciate mentioning how much the flood cost in today dollars, but it’s also important to hear the cost in 1936 dollars as well. Has greater impact I think.
That 1936 flood also affected the Potomac River at Harper's Ferry. A lot of rain fell over West Virginia, and the outflow over the Monongahela and Potomac Rivers wreaked havoc miles downstream. Basically, no place near a river was safe unless it was up high.
