Aftermath of a River's Rampage

On the morning of March 23, 1929, people in several areas of East Tennessee awakened to find themselves surrounded by a scene of watery destruction. Normally shallow streams and creeks were now raging rivers while the rivers themselves spilled over their banks as torrents of uncontrollable force and destroying power.

Shows the record height floodwaters reached in 1929.

Taken from the same location on the CNO&TP near Oakdale,before the flood.

Spring rains falling steadily for several days had drained down the mountainsides into the lowlands with flood conditions an inevitable result.

With the aid of a pile-driver a work crew repairs damage to a bridge near Harriman Junction.

Among Southern Railway lines in that part of the state the CNO&TP paralleling the Emory River in the vicinity of Oakdale and nearby sections of the Harriman & Northeastern were particularly hard hit. The Emory rose several feet above any previous recorded flood mark and its strong currents undercut fills and twisted steel rails as though they were made of paper- clip wire.

Water-soaked Oakdale presents a bleak picture a few days after the Hood. Note the collapsed house at the river's edge and the broken stub of a highway bridge.

The railway's Oakdale yard was also heavily damaged. Cars caught on yard tracks by the Hood were slammed against each other to end up like stacks of carelessly piled cordwood. Fourteen cars were swept down the river.

The Hood in East Tennessee that year was the third to strike Southern Railway lines within a span of three weeks. Late in February torrential rains had washed out sections of track on the GS&F near Macon and two weeks later parts of the Mobile division in Alabama were severely damaged by Hood waters.

In each of these cases the railway demonstrated its self-reliance in an emergency. Providing its own material and work forces the Southern rolled up its sleeves and, hardly waiting for Hood waters to subside, pitched in to restore service. Some of the pictures on these pages show the extent of the reconstruction work in East Tennessee where thousands of cars of slag were brought in to resurface the roadway. Extra gangs imported from other divisions, combined with local forces, raised the total labor force to over one thousand workmen.

Destruction takes a graceful form.

In sharp contrast to this "do-it-yourself" spirit under which the Southern and the railroad industry in general operate, a report recently came to Ties' attention showing how the railway's competitors, the highway freight industry, leans heavily on the public treasury in an emergency.

Two years ago, a series of disastrous hurricanes and floods struck the New England states. Many miles of roads and bridges were wrecked and, at the same time, hundreds of miles of railroad line was disabled.

Three sets of track show the aftereffects of water rising from the left of the picture. The lowest track, on the left, was washed off the roadbed.

The truckers sat back and waited for state-paid crews to restore the highway's-an item, incidentally, that eventually cost the Connecticut treasury alone about $38 million.

A frame building washed partly under the span of this Southern Railway bridge at Oakdale served as a grim reminder of a Hood's awesome power,

Meanwhile, the railroads struck by the same disaster called out railroad employees and railroad equipment, used railroad materials and railroad money to put their lines back in shape. Some roads even had to borrow funds to complete the job.

Dramatic evidence of a railroad taking care of its own. Hundreds of men from other Southern divisions joined local forces to repair flood damage at "Big Bend" north of Oakdale.

As the Southern did in 1929 and has done on similar other occasions the N ew England railroads performed in a manner typical of an industry that accepts no government hand-outs. They paid their own way.

(Ties thanks to Leslie Woodall, Birmingham division trainmaster, for the use of these pictures from his father's collection, )