Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
The damage from Pittsburgh's 1936 flood was little short of incredible—an estimated $250
million. That would be more than $3.5 billion in today's dollars. The flood claimed more
than 60 lives, and another 500 people were injured. Thousands of buildings were destroyed
or damaged. Officials said the food supply was adequate but warned that anything touched
by floodwaters should be discarded. It would be weeks before the city returned to normal.
Sixty-five percent of Pittsburgh's downtown business district was covered by the floodwa-
ters, which lingered on for several days. When the water finally went down, it left a soggy,
smelly, muddy mess. Nor was the damage confined to the city's downtown. An estimated
60,000 steelworkers were out of work for weeks as a result of the damage the area's steel
mills, most of them built at riverbank sites, suffered.
