A C ASE S TUDY : Jessica Pain & Chelsey Rohm T HE G REAT F LOOD OF A UGUST 19 TH 1955

F LOODS Is on overflow of an expanse of water that submerges land. (A Wikipedia Definition). Thousands of floods occur each year, at marginally different scales. Many to all cause damages of some sort Floods occur all throughout the United States. There are different types of floods Coastal, caused by sever sea storms or by another hazard, including storm surges Riverine have fast and slow kinds, and caused by rainfall, both sudden and slow buildups of water level and saturation.

W HAT H APPENED Connecticut was declared to be “the hardest hit victim of the worst flood in the history of the eastern United States” (Nov. 3, 1955 Connecticut Flood Recovery Committee). Two hurricanes, Connie and Diane dropped a total of up to 20 inches of rain over the course of 6 days The most damages occurred along the Mad and Still Rivers in Winsted, the Naugatuck, the Farmington, and the Quinebaug in the Putnam-Killingly region. Many flood victims had only minutes to evacuate their homes, some being woken up and told they had to leave now.

H URRICANE C ONNIE Started off as a tropical wave, progressed into a tropical storm, and then became a Category 4 hurricane, with winds reaching up to 145 mph. Formed August 3 rd, 1955 and dissipated August 15 th, Alone, would not have caused much damage. It was followed by Hurricane Diane.

H URRICANE D IANE Formed August 7 th, 1955, and dissipated August 20 th, 1955, came to the coast as a category 3 hurricane with winds reaching up to 120 mph, Became a major hurricane on the 12 th Was so devastating because of the rain that Connie had dumped on Connecticut only 5 days earlier

WHAT THE 1955 FLOODS COST C ONNECTICUT ACCORDING TO G OVERNOR R IBICOFF : 91 persons dead and 12 others missing and presumed dead. 86,000 persons unemployed. More than 1,100 families left homeless. Another 2,300 families were at least temporarily without shelter. Nearly 20,000 families suffered flood damage. Sixty-seven of 169 towns were affected by the floods. The damage to individual property, to business, to industry, and to State and municipal facilities has been estimated at almost half a billion dollars. (That’s $4,043,998, in 2010 money with an annual inflation of 3.87%)

W OODLAND, WA Woodland has suffered from many floods since it was founded in In 1996, Woodland and the Cowlitz County was declared as a National Emergancy, as flooding had breached the dike that had been built to prevent flooding. There have been many other floods in Woodland, most well know might be the floods that devestated the Hulda Kleger lilac gardens, which is now a historical site.

W ORKS C ITED The Connecticut Floods of 1955: A Fifty-Year Perspective, Connecticut Library, Hurricane History (Section Hurricanes Connie and Diane 1955), National Hurricane Center, Multiple Authors, $ Dollar Times, HB Brothers