Article taken from The Herald Press, St. Joseph, Michigan, March 8, 1945
Army Uses Combat Tactics In Effort to Save Imperiled City - Portsmouth, O., Mar. 8 (AP)
Flood waters inched closer to tops of dikes in this Ohio river city, but elsewhere along the 1,000-mile valley floods neated or passed their crests and at some points were beginning to subside.The army brought combat tactics into play to keep steadily rising water of the Ohio and tributary Scioto rivers from gushing over Portsmouth floodwalls.
More than 25,000 empty sandbags were loaded on trucks at Cincinnati, to be sped to an air base at Wilmington, Ohio. From there C-47 transports would drop them to soldiers and volunteers who have waged a never-ceasing battle to erect earthworks and sandbag barriers atop existing flood barriers.
The river here was past the 64-foot stage, two feet higher than the city's floodwall. It was being held back by the hastily erected barriers.
River Forecaster George Martin said the crest here would be reached at 64.5 feet late today.
Waters of the Monogahela and Allegheny rivers at Pittsburgh, headwaters of the Ohio, dropped steadily.
An estimated 125,000 persons were made homeless by the flood, greatest since the Ohio rampaged out of its banks in 1937 and caused nearly a half billion dollars damage.
At least nine lives were lost in floods all in the industrial and agricultural valley.
Ironically, the Ohio had started to decline 150 miles downstream in the Cincinnati area, where crest of 69.2 feet, 17.2 feet above flood stage, was reached at 1 p.m. yesterday. The river remained stationary until late in the night, when the slow drop started, and the Portsmouth crest was expected to reach there too late to force the river up again, unless further heavy rains fell.