April 6, 1913. With the Mississippi River rising a foot an hour, a gang of workhouse prisoners builds a levee in Memphis, Tennessee.

Also in April 1913, in Memphis, on Main Street. The sign “Boil Water Before Drinking” reminded residents that while the Mississippi was normally considered safe to drink, it wasn’t now, not when the river was full of car tires, dead cats, and drowned rats. Both images courtesy of Memphis and Shelby County Room, Memphis Public Library & Information Center.

Again, April 1913, Memphis. Horses and carriages make their way down Washington Street, before the water levels get any worse.

April 1913, Memphis. A tent city is erected alongside some floodwaters. Both images courtesy of Memphis and Shelby County Room, Memphis Public Library & Information Center.

Survivors survey the wreckage shortly after the March 23, 1913 tornado in Omaha.

Another look at Omaha after the March 23, 1913 tornado.

Tornadoes have a way of making everything look the same. These are the remains of a home destroyed in Terre Haute, Indiana. All three images courtesy of The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Department of Commerce, archival photography by Steve Nicklas, NOS, NGS

Still (barely) standing. The March 23, 1913 tornado that hit Terre Haute, Indiana and pulverized this home was part of a storm system that brought forth numerous tornadoes and, of course, the flood.

Late March, 1913. Fremont, Ohio, experiences the flood up close and personal. Both images courtesy of The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Department of Commerce, archival photography by Steve Nicklas, NOS, NGS.

Late March, 1913, somewhere in New York state, along the Hudson River. Courtesy of The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Department of Commerce, archival photography by Steve Nicklas, NOS, NGS.

At Forest Avenue and Palmer Street, in Dayton, Ohio, an oarsman takes some people to safety. Courtesy of Dayton Metro Library, 1913 Flood Collection.

It looks calm here, in Troy, New York, but on March 28, 1913, when the worst of the flooding hit, fires broke out and hundreds of people were made homeless.

The flood, which hit Watervliet, New York, was said to have infected the wells in the area and the general drinking water and may have been responsible for making residents sick. Eleven people died in the aftermath of the flood of typhoid fever, double the amount of deaths from the disease in the years before and after. Both images courtesy of The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/ Department of Commerce, archival photography by Steve Nicklas, NOS, NGS.

In Youngstown, Ohio, many of the residents lived on hillsides and were spared the wrath of the Mahoning River in March 1913. The industries in the valley, however, weren’t so lucky. Courtesy of The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Department of Commerce, archival photography by Steve Nicklas, NOS, NGS.

The mustachioed man in the dark clothing, evidently watching boatmen doing their rescuing, is John H. Patterson, the founder of the National Cash Register Company (NCR) and a Dayton, Ohio legend for his efforts in saving his fellow townspeople’s lives. Courtesy of Dayton Metro Library, 1913 Flood Collection.

Nelson “Bud” Talbott, son of Harold Talbott (the man in charge of the boatmaking at NCR) and Frederick Beck Patterson (right), son of John H. Patterson, pose for a photo. It was said that, together, Talbott and Patterson rescued 162 people from their homes in a canoe.

On the first floor of the National Cash Register building, a kitchen was set up to feed flood refugees. In the center is John Patterson’s nineteen-year-old daughter Dorothy. Both images courtesy of Dayton Metro Library, 1913 Flood Collection.

Some Dayton, Ohio citizens watch as flood survivors “walk” the telephone wires until they reach dry ground. A few citizens below aren’t even watching the ongoing scene above them, suggesting that by now the escapes were becoming commonplace.

Another shot showing just how precarious these walks along the telephone wires in Dayton, Ohio were. That there seem to be no reports of people slipping and falling to their deaths seems like a minor miracle. Both images courtesy of Dayton Metro Library, 1913 Flood Collection.

Dayton, Ohio, after the flood. A familiar sight: the ruins of a flooded house.

Another familiar sight: that of a piano being washed away.

An unidentified barn or house, destroyed in the flood.

Rescue operations such as this one were ongoing in Dayton and communities across Ohio and numerous other states, including Indiana, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and West Virginia.

A look at Main Street in Dayton during the flood. Someone has scrawled on the photo that it was taken at 3:30 P.M. on March 25, 1913. All five images courtesy of Dayton Metro Library, 1913 Flood Collection.

After the flood: the ruins of the Lowe Brothers Paint Store Company (and no, there’s no connection to Lowe’s, the home improvement chain). The rubble of the William D. Huber Furniture Company, south of the store, is also in the shot. Both businesses were taken out not by just the flood but by fire too.

What it looks like: railroad cars tossed aside by the flood.

One of the many sad and not unusual scenes in Dayton after the flood, on North Ludlow, near Second Street and the First Presbyterian Church.

Someone took this shot either during or shortly after the flood—in one of the untouched, dry parts of the city—of Dayton savior John H. Patterson and Edward A. Deeds, a high-level executive at NCR, who, like Patterson, was also looking at a year in the clink for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act.

A musical graveyard: It seems likely that in this neighborhood, people came back to their homes after the waters receded, found their ruined pianos, and began tossing them here. All five images courtesy of Dayton Metro Library, 1913 Flood Collection.

One of many flood refugee camps, this one at the northeast corner of Main and Stillwater in Dayton. Behind the people is an apartment building.

Flood survivors are walking past the courthouse in Dayton, carrying, yes, someone who didn’t make it.

All we know about this photo is that it was apparently taken during the days of (or perhaps shortly after) the flood. The man in the center is James M. Cox, the governor of Ohio. All three images courtesy of Dayton Metro Library, 1913 Flood Collection.

The woman standing left of the bicycle is Lydia Saettel, who wisely took her baby with her instead of leaving him behind with her father-in-law, who remained at his building, which later blew up in an explosion. The man next to her is her husband, Oliver.

The Saettels’ grocery store—the man with the apron is probably Oliver Saettel. This photo was presumably taken before the flood. After the explosion, however, the building was rebuilt. The grocery store finally closed around 1970. Fire and flood couldn’t take it down, but supermarkets did. Both images courtesy of Elinor Kline.

These homes along Main Street in Dayton, Ohio, were destroyed by fire and flood. Courtesy of Dayton Metro Library, 1913 Flood Collection.

A house on the edge of the flooding in Mentor, Kentucky, taken by the author’s great-grandmother, who lived in this town.

The same house as the one in the previous photo, taken almost a hundred years later, in 2012. If you look down the road, past those trees is a sprawling field that looks to be as long and wide as a couple of football fields, and past that is the Ohio River. Last two images courtesy of Jim and Rita Williams.