Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Cairo was safe but only for the moment, for the Weather Bureau warned the river was going
still higher. Weary workers added rows of sandbags to the top of the town's levee, then
erected a wooden bulwark atop the bags. Cairo was now a sunken island, surrounded by the
floodwaters. But when the flood reached its 60-foot crest, the reinforced levee held—and
Cairo became the only city on the southern Ohio to escape being inundated by the great
flood. (Courtesy the Library of Congress.)
