Southern Floods and Their Forestry Lessons 



o 



By Herman H. Chapman 

 Professor of Forestry, Vale University 



. . , r u i. a t ,;<rh around and have had some experience with floods. 



N SATURDAY mght, July 15th, after a day of ^ ^d and pe^ ^^ ^ 



rain, a continuous downpour set m covering the %$ ^ ^ At the head of Clear Creek, 

 mountamous region of Western North Ca ohna am> hn e y ^ McDowell County, 

 By morning from 10 to IS inches -,ji water had fallen, as from > wtaA * M*> & ^^ 

 measured by the records of the Weather Bureau. tjpon ^^^ h SU ^' refuge J midnight in a small out- 

 the Catawba river, whose sources he in the Blue Ridge ^""** tne "caching flood, which was whirl- 

 cast of lit Mitchell, a flood started which swept w.th m- ^^ZZ^oTson its crfst. At the instant when 

 creasing velocity and destructiveness through the entire mg down trees niu iu g 



length of the 



river to the sea, 

 earning with 

 it, with one 

 or two excep- 

 tions, every 

 railroad and 

 turnpike bridge 

 on the stream, 

 no matter how 

 substantially 

 built or an- 

 chored. Simi- 

 lar floods oc- 

 curred on other 

 rivers flowing 

 both east and 

 west from these 

 mountain 

 chains. 



Accompany- 

 ing these floods, 

 great land- 

 slides, or mud 

 a valanches, 

 occurred on the 

 steep mountain 

 slopes, tearing 

 gashes thou- 

 sands of feet long and from 50 to 300 feet wide in 

 the forest cover, and precipitating the debris on roads, 

 railroads and into streams, where it was whirled away 

 in the mad torrent to be deposited on fertile fields of 

 corn in drifts two to eight feet deep. Swelled beyond 

 all previous experience, these raging floods viciously 

 gnawed into their banks. Protecting belts of trees were 

 uprooted and whole fields, 30 to 100 acres in extent, melted 

 into the current and were borne away, leaving a waste of 

 boulders in place of soil worth $200 an acre. The extent 

 and suddenness of the damage were almost incredible, and 

 unless one had seen conditions as they were before this 

 flood, he would not believe that the transformation and 

 ruin were the result of about twelve hours of high water. 

 The death-list of over eighty persons was kept down only 

 by the fact that most mountaineers build their homes on 

 476 



The photograph on the right shows where the big landslide has washed across the course of a stream, completely 

 The second shows at close hand a part - 



blocking it 

 a landslide 



they had gained 

 this shelter an 

 enormous land- 

 slide started on 

 the mountain 

 directly oppo- 

 site, tore its way 

 down, com- 

 pletely filling 

 and crossing a 

 small ravine, 

 causing the 

 earth to tremble 

 and plunged 

 into the stream, 

 sending a great 

 wave up the 

 bank, which, 

 had it been a 

 few seconds 

 sooner, would 

 have engulfed 

 the refugees. 

 Violent air cur- 

 rents were 

 caused by this 

 slide which 

 threw the chil- 

 dren about, but 

 no one was injured. They then fled up the slope and 

 passed the night in the woods without shelter, listen- 

 ing to the boulders grinding together in the flood as it 

 swept away every vestige of their cornfield in the bot- 

 tom. Mr. Turner, 76 years old and suffering from a 

 malignant cancer, had been bedridden for months pre- 

 vious to this experience, but the shock and excitement 

 restored his strength, and he was up and about, able to 

 talk of the events of the night with gusto. 



George Bird, forest ranger, whose house was on the 

 flat. 100 feet from the old brook channel, became aware 

 early in the evening that the stream was destroying his 

 front yard and eating its way towards the house. He 

 frantically emptied the structure of its furniture and 

 children, and awaited the moment when it would dis- 

 appear down stream. But the flood spent itself just 



VIEWS OF LANDSLIDES 



slide has washed 



and only a small part, of the devastation in the path of 



