Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
More than 27,000 of Paducah's 33,000 men, women, and children were carried to safety on
boats provided by the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Navy, and the Tennessee Valley Authority,
along with private craft manned by volunteers from the Red Cross, the American Legion,
and other organizations. Unfortunately, a water spot has damaged this souvenir postcard,
but it nonetheless provides a dramatic view of a rescue boat cruising along a flooded
Broadway. Those evacuated were housed in hastily established refugee camps.
Although mostly forgotten today, author and newspaper humorist Irvin S. Cobb
(1876-1944) was one of the best-known men in America in the 1930s and was the namesake
of one of the finest hotels in his hometown of Paducah. When the 1937 flood hit, the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers established an emergency headquarters at the Irvin Cobb Hotel.
As the floodwaters rose, the ladder perched against the hotel marquee would come in
handy. (Courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.)
