Americans have a history of mobilizing to combat flooding. Among the more brilliant accomplishments of President Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) was the creation of a mobile workforce that could be deployed on a moment’s notice to battle hurricanes, floods, and fires. In January 1937, a series of torrential rains pelted the Ohio River Valley and left a trail of disaster. Fifteen percent of Cincinnati, Ohio was underwater; 70% of Louisville, Kentucky; and 100% of Paducah, Kentucky were inundated. Cities up and down the Ohio River were dead and a million were left homeless.
Harry Hopkins, who directed the WPA, and was Roosevelt’s relief commissioner, immediately arrived on the scene and oversaw relief, construction, flood control, and cleanup. He deployed 200,000 WPA workers to build sanitary privies, nail wooden catwalks to carry foot traffic over the swamps of mud, clear refuse, remove garbage, and cook hot meals for the hungry.
