St. Rose

I had an early meeting this morning downtown. Early enough that I went to said meeting and when I was finished, I drove out to Lunken Airport for a five-mile tempo run. On the return drive, I passed by Saint Rose Church on Eastern Avenue and swung in to take a picture of the high water marks on the back of the sacristy wall (the white strip running from the ground up between the two windows).

My Grandpa Alberts was baptized in that church and always talked about the painted markings depicting all of the river's biggest floods since the year 1800.

1937 gets top honors with 80' (basically equivalent to the top of the windows). It's hard to put it into perspective but the shot in the lower left shows the river in the background beyond the parking lot and the top of that second story window represents the 80' high water mark of 1937. At its crest, the river was 80' deep and probably upwards of a mile across. That is an unreal amount of water and hard to fathom.

Either way, it's a nice piece of history worth checking out. Here is a list of Cincinnati's biggest floods since 1800...

1. 80'0" (1937)

2. 71'2" (1884)

3. 70'0" (1913)

4. 69'3" (1945)

5. 66'6" (1964) Coincidence?

6. 65'0" (1997)

7. 64'10" (1948)

8. 63'7" (1933)

9. 61'9" (1918)

10. 61'6" (1966)

11. 61'5" (1982)

12. 60'6" (1930)

13. 60'1" (1979)

14. 59'4" (1978/1963)