Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
As the 1936 floodwaters quickly submerged the basements of Pittsburgh houses and started
filling their first floors, residents began carrying their things up to their second
floors—furniture, pets, and everything else they could get up the stairs. The caption of this
souvenir postcard read, “Floodwater—An Unwelcome Guest in the Parlor.” With no elec-
tricity, candles furnished the only light in thousands of homes.
Wheeling, West Virginia, is especially vulnerable to flooding because it is built on an island
and a narrow strip of land along a few miles of the riverbank. The flood of March 1936
covered Wheeling Island and much of the downtown, putting three feet of muddy water in
these buildings on Main Street, including the Windsor Hotel and the National Bank of West
Virginia (the ornate building at left rear with the distinctive semicircular marquee).
