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Multimedia presentation by
Steve Mellon and Bob Batz Jr.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Fed by extraordinary snow melt and rain, Pittsburgh's ice-filled three rivers crested at the Point on March 18, 1936, at the highest mark since anyone has kept track: Just over 46 feet. The Allegheny and Monongahela rivers were converging near Smithfield Street, leaving Downtown under as much as 15 feet of water.
By the time the brown water receded, the toll was more than 60 dead, 500 hurt and 135,000 homeless. Flood damage just within Allegheny County was estimated at $150 million to $200 million.
Pittsburgh's Flood of Memories: St. Patrick's Day 1936 Boy survived flood -- and hat pin
In this presentation, two flood survivors share their memories of the event, still vivid 70 years later.
Mary Wohleber, 89, a Troy Hill historian, was 19 at the time, living on that same hill. She still has vivid memories of the flood and wondering whether workers would be able to evacuate all the animals in the vast stockyards on Herr's Island at the base of Troy Hill -- now Washington's Landing.
John Carey, 81 and now living in Cranberry, was 11 years old in 1936 and living in a seven-room houseboat his father built on an old wooden barge. It was tied up on the Ohio River along the North Side, at the west base of North Avenue. The family scrambled to safety, but their home disappeared downstream, never to be seen again.
First Published: March 15, 2006, 5:00 a.m.
