FLOODS OF 1903. 



DATA COLLECTED ON THE UNUSUALLY DESTRUCTIVE FRESHETS OF 

 LAST YEAR, WITH SUGGESTIONS LOOKING TO RELIEF IN FUTURE. 



THE year 1903 had perhaps more 

 than its fair share of natural 

 calamity of flood and fire and famine. 

 In the United States during May and 

 June there were three notable floods 

 which caused serious loss of life and 

 great destruction of property, one in 

 Oregon, one in South Carolina, and one 

 in Kansas. A recent publication of the 

 United States Geological Survey, sched- 

 uled as Water Supply and Irrigation 

 Paper No. 96, contains a discussion of 

 the various phenomena connected with 

 these floods, and suggests means for 

 minimizing the destructiveness of future 

 deluges. The author of the paper is 

 Mr. E. C. Murphy. 



The flood of shortest duration occurred 

 on Willow Creek, Morrow county, Ore- 

 gon, Sunday evening, June 14, 1903. 

 It was the result of what is popularly 

 called a cloudburst, a heavy rainstorm 

 of short duration covering a very small 

 area and peculiar to arid regions. The 

 flood that rose as the result of the heavy 

 downpour of rain lasted less than an 

 hour, but in that short space of time 

 one section of Heppner, a town with a 

 population of about 1,400, was swept 

 entirely away, a quarter million dol- 

 lars' worth of property was destroyed, 

 and more than 200 people were drowned. 

 The great loss of life was partly due 

 to the peculiar construction of the houses 

 in Heppner. Nearly all these houses 

 were built on posts of wood or stone, 

 from which the flood lifted them and car- 

 ried them away to be dashed to pieces 

 against trees and other obstructions. 



The South Carolina flood occurred on 

 June 6, 1903, and continued for nearly 

 twenty-four hours. In that time there 

 was a rainfall of from 3^ to 5 inches 

 over an area of about 2, 500 square miles 

 on the southern slope of the Blue Ridge- 

 Saluda Mountains, including parts of 

 Cherokee, Spartanburg, and Pickens 

 counties, in South Carolina, and Ruther- 

 ford, Polk, and Henderson counties, in 

 North Carolina. This area is drained by 

 three small tributaries of Broad River, 



known as the Pacolet, Tiger, and Enoree. 

 The principal damage wrought by the 

 flood was on the Pacolet, where numer- 

 ous cotton mills were ruined and much 

 railway property was destroyed. 



The Kansas flood occurred during the 

 last week of May and the first week of 

 June. It affected a much larger area 

 than either the Heppner or South Caro- 

 lina flood and was due to a storm that 

 lasted nearly a week. 



The United States Geological Survey 

 has fortunately six gaging stations in 

 the watershed of the Kansas River, and 

 has, therefore, a comprehensive record 

 of the surface fluctuations of the river 

 and its principal tributaries during the 

 flood. The records at Lawrence and 

 Lecompton, on the Kansas River, cover 

 a period of 22 years. The estimated 

 flow of the Kansas River on May 31 was 

 225,400 cubic feet per second. In other 

 words, if there had been a storage reser- 

 voir i acre in area and 7^/2 feet in depth 

 on each section of the whole drainage 

 area of the Kansas River, the water 

 flowing into the river on May 31 was 

 sufficient to have more than filled all 

 of them. 



The whole river bottom was flooded, 

 cropswere destroyed, stock was drowned, 

 wooden buildings were lifted from their 

 foundations and brick houses crumbled 

 and fell, railroads were undermined, and 

 bridges were swept away. Traffic in 

 eastern Kansas was almost entirely sus- 

 pended for two weeks. The property 

 loss in Kansas and in Kansas City, Mis- 

 souri, is estimated to have been no less 

 than $22,000,000. 



Among the subjects considered in this 

 paper are the effects of ground storage, 

 of cultivation, and of forests in reducing 

 the magnitude of floods. The effect on 

 streams of dams, of bridge piers, and 

 abutments is discussed; also the danger 

 of building out into streams, thus nar- 

 rowing the waterway and increasing the 

 magnitude of floods. The relief afforded 

 by straightening the channel is men- 

 tioned and the use of levees is explained. 



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