Washed Away
How the Great Flood of 1913, America’s Most Widespread Natural Disaster, Terrorized a Nation and Changed It Forever
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Narrated by:
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Jim Vann
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By:
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Geoff Williams
About this listen
The incredible story of a flood of near-Biblical proportions - its destruction, its heroes and victims, and how it shaped America’s natural-disaster policies for the next century.
The storm began March 23, 1913, with a series of tornadoes that killed 150 people and injured 400. Then the freezing rains started and the flooding began. It continued for days. Some people drowned in their attics, others on the roads when they tried to flee. It was the nation’s most widespread flood ever - more than 700 people died, hundreds of thousands of homes and buildings were destroyed, and millions were left homeless.
The destruction extended far beyond the Ohio valley to Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, New York, New Jersey, and Vermont. Fourteen states in all, and every major and minor river east of the Mississippi.
In the aftermath, flaws in America’s natural disaster response system were exposed, echoing today’s outrage over Katrina. People demanded change. Laws were passed, and dams were built. Teams of experts vowed to develop flood control techniques for the region and stop flooding for good. So far those efforts have succeeded.
It is estimated that in the Miami Valley alone, nearly 2,000 floods have been prevented, and the same methods have been used as a model for flood control nationwide and around the world.
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Story
The hurricane that struck Galveston, Texas, on September 8, 1900, killed between 6,000 and 12,000 people. Prior to advanced communications, few people knew about impending hurricanes except those closest to the site. In the days before television or even radio, catastrophic descriptions were merely recorded on paper, limiting our understanding of the immediate impact. Thus it was inevitable that the category 4 hurricane would cause almost inconceivable destruction.
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The Hurricane
- By scott massey on 06-14-24
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Chicago's Great Fire
- The Destruction and Resurrection of an Iconic American City
- By: Carl Smith
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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From an acclaimed historian, the full and authoritative story of one of the most iconic disasters in American history, told through the vivid memories of those who experienced it. Carl Smith’s compelling narrative at last gives this epic event its full and proper place in our national chronicle.
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A good read
- By Lori on 11-23-24
By: Carl Smith
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This Is Chance!
- The Shaking of an All-American City, a Voice That Held It Together
- By: Jon Mooallem
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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In the spring of 1964, Anchorage, Alaska, was a modern-day frontier town yearning to be a metropolis - the largest, proudest city in a state that was still brand-new. But just before sundown on Good Friday, the community was jolted by the most powerful earthquake in American history, a catastrophic 9.2 on the Richter Scale. This Is Chance! is the thrilling, cinematic story of a community shattered by disaster - and the extraordinary woman who helped pull it back together.
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amazing story
- By Dani L on 02-07-21
By: Jon Mooallem
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The Great Halifax Explosion
- A World War I Story of Treachery, Tragedy, and Extraordinary Heroism
- By: John U. Bacon
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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From best-selling author John U. Bacon, a gripping narrative history of the largest manmade detonation prior to Hiroshima. On Monday, December 3, 1917, the French freighter SS Mont-Blanc set sail from Brooklyn carrying the largest cache of explosives ever loaded onto a ship, including 2,300 tons of picric acid, an unstable, poisonous chemical more powerful than TNT.
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Too much hostility towards Americans
- By bigdaddyKT on 12-14-19
By: John U. Bacon
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Hiroshima
- By: John Hersey
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 5 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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A journalistic masterpiece. John Hersey transports us back to the streets of Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945 - the day the city was destroyed by the first atomic bomb. Told through the memories of six survivors, Hiroshima is a timeless, powerful classic that will awaken your heart and your compassion. In this new edition, Hersey returns to Hiroshima to find the survivors - and to tell their fates in an eloquent and moving final chapter.
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Hiroshima, the days and years that followed
- By Julia on 04-15-15
By: John Hersey
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Sudden Sea
- By: R.A. Scotti
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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In the tradition of The Perfect Storm, Sudden Sea hearkens back to a natural disaster that struck terror in the hearts of many. In this narrative, listeners experience the Great Hurricane of 1938, the most financially destructive storm on record.
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Very professional and interesting
- By Careful Consumer on 08-09-23
By: R.A. Scotti
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The Race Underground
- Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry That Built America's First Subway
- By: Doug Most
- Narrated by: John H. Mayer
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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In the late nineteenth century, as cities like Boston and New York grew larger, the streets became increasingly clogged with horse-drawn carts. When the great blizzard of 1888 brought New York City to a halt, a solution had to be found. Two brothers - Henry Melville Whitney of Boston and William Collins Whitney of New York City - pursued the dream of his city being the first American metropolis to have a subway and the great race was on.
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Informative Cobbled Telling of an Important Story
- By Lynn on 05-21-14
By: Doug Most
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Fire in Paradise
- By: Alastair Gee, Dani Anguiano
- Narrated by: T. Ryder Smith
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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There is no precedent in postwar American history for the destruction of the town of Paradise, California. On November 8, 2018, the community of 27,000 people was swallowed by the ferocious Camp Fire, which razed virtually every home and killed at least 85 people. Fire in Paradise is a dramatic and moving narrative of the disaster based on hundreds of in-depth interviews with residents, firefighters and police, and scientific experts.
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A gripping view of an American tragedy
- By Kalutha on 06-30-20
By: Alastair Gee, and others
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The Burning
- Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921
- By: Tim Madigan
- Narrated by: Bill Andrew Quinn
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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On the morning of June 1, 1921, a white mob numbering in the thousands marched across the railroad tracks dividing black from white in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and obliterated a black community then celebrated as one of America's most prosperous. The Burning will recreate the town of Greenwood at the height of its prosperity, explore the currents of hatred, racism, and mistrust between its black residents and neighboring Tulsa's white population, narrate events leading up to and including Greenwood's annihilation, and document the subsequent silence that surrounded the tragedy.
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Hard to listen to, but a must read.
- By Amazon Customer on 06-17-20
By: Tim Madigan
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The Age of Daredevils
- By: Michael Clarkson
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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By turns a family drama and an action-adventure story, The Age of Daredevils chronicles the lives of the men and women who devoted themselves to the extraordinary sport of jumping over Niagara Falls in a barrel - a death-defying gamble that proved a powerful temptation to a hardy few. Internationally known in the 1920s and '30s for their barrel-jumping exploits, the Hills were a father-son team of daredevils who also rescued dozens of misguided thrill seekers and accident victims who followed them into the river.
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Interesting
- By Always Honest on 10-10-16
By: Michael Clarkson
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Under a Flaming Sky
- The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894
- By: Daniel James Brown
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall, Daniel James Brown
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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On September 1, 1894, two forest fires converged on the town of Hinckley, Minnesota, trapping over 2,000 people. Daniel J. Brown recounts the events surrounding the fire in the first and only book to chronicle the dramatic story that unfolded. Whereas Oregon's famous "Biscuit" fire in 2002 burned 350,000 acres in one week, the Hinckley fire did the same damage in five hours. The fire created its own weather, including hurricane-strength winds, bubbles of plasmalike glowing gas, and 200-foot-tall flames.
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History lovers dream book.
- By Lynn Fraser on 10-18-18
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Into the Forest
- A Holocaust Story of Survival, Triumph, and Love
- By: Rebecca Frankel
- Narrated by: Natalie Pela
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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In the summer of 1942, the Rabinowitz family narrowly escaped the Nazi ghetto in their Polish town by fleeing to the forbidding Bialowieza Forest. They miraculously survived two years in the woods—through brutal winters, Typhus outbreaks, and merciless Nazi raids—until they were liberated by the Red Army in 1944. After the war, they trekked across the Alps into Italy, where they settled as refugees before eventually immigrating to the United States.
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Great story with an added benefit
- By Scottsville Stu on 12-30-21
By: Rebecca Frankel
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The Children's Blizzard
- By: David Laskin
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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January 12, 1888, began as an unseasonably warm morning across Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Minnesota, the weather so mild that children walked to school without coats and gloves. But that afternoon, without warning, the atmosphere suddenly, violently changed. One moment the air was calm; the next the sky exploded in a raging chaos of horizontal snow and hurricane-force winds. Temperatures plunged as an unprecedented cold front ripped through the center of the continent.
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True Account of 1888 Prairie Blizzard
- By Mary Burnight on 01-09-17
By: David Laskin
What listeners say about Washed Away
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Barbara Osborne
- 01-28-23
Washed away
Very interesting story! Amazing how many well known and successful people came out of the tragedy. And the final moral was communities and families should always band together during times of trouble, that we are stronger together than alone
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- R. Terp
- 01-24-20
Took a moment to build, then it was quite a storm
At first I was confused on how the story was told, it jumped a bit. But once I got use to the speech pattern I loved it. Alot of interesting facts in history that is not covered alot. I would often wonder a question in line with the topic, and it would soon be answered. Showed the human emotion, in joy and sorrow.
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- Kim Hamacher
- 07-28-15
I love these historical narratives
This one was a little hard to follow on audio as the author jumps around a good deal and there are lots of characters but I did enjoy the story.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-21-21
Lessons in flood control
Devastating but full of human interest stories, the “Great Flood of 1913” caused hundreds of casualties in Dayton Ohio and many other areas in the Midwest. Lessons can be learned for today. Dayton responded quickly. Soon after the flood Orville Wright created a hydroplane that lifted the spirits of recovering victims. One of the early Water Control Engineers, Arther Ernest Morgan was hired by Dayton to design 5 dams. Their foresight prevented at least 7 similar floods, including one in the 1960s when I was living there. Planning for disaster is essential today and we need to learn from the past.
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- Christina Webster
- 08-22-22
Frustrating
I have never posted a negative review and think that these may be the only 3 stars I’ve given, but this was a difficult listen! The writing is clunky as the author often repeats words (mostly adjectives) and turns of phrase within a few lines. The use of incorrect tense is frustrating as the author seems to shift to modern day while referring to past events. I don’t know how an editor let this draft slip past! On a more positive note: the narrator did an admirable job with the material and there were many interesting stories and characters that the author cleverly wove together.
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- Ellen
- 03-20-18
Interesting history poorly presented
Snarky, supercilious 21st century judgements undermined interesting history. Author seemed unexperienced in real natural disasters.
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