Farming in a floodplain requires a certain acceptance of natural forces. The Cuyahoga River and its tributaries normally flood throughout the year, especially during the spring. The effects are not all bad. Stormwater washing into the floodplain deposits sediments that replenish the soil.
Periodically, devastating floods sweep the region and beyond. The most famous is the Great Flood of 1913. It swept away homes, barns, livestock, and more. The Ohio & Erie Canal was so overwhelmed that some structures had to be dynamited to release the water and the canal never recovered.
Cuyahoga Valley flood, 2004.
NPS Collection
Urvan Murphy and his family survived the 1913 flood, but the rising waters damaged their home and fields. The historic Murphy Farm was located between the Cuyahoga River and the canal, just south of present-day Station Road Bridge Trailhead.
In the 21st century, Cuyahoga Valley farmers continue to deal with high water and crop loss. With increased land development and more numerous severe storms, water now pulses more rapidly into streams that feed the Cuyahoga River, threatening downstream communities. Despite this hardship, farmers find help from their neighbors and work together to rebuild homes and businesses.
Flooding and Help From Friends
Earl Foote, a Valley View farmer, talks about the flooding challenges he faces almost every year.
First speaker: Well probably in the fifty-plus years that we have farmed we have probably had fifty floods. Not every year but some of the times we've had as high as four floods in a year. But in '06 we had one that was seven foot deep in our retail business and two foot deep in our house that we lived in. The house was raised up by the federal insurance company and so forth, so this last one that was last week, we didn't get flooded. But if we hadn't we would have had a foot of water on our main floor then.
Got a lot of nice friends in people. When we'd have friends . . . er, a flood. '04? That was it?
Second speaker: Pretty big one.
First speaker: There was people came from all over. Customers came in and helped shovel mud. My relatives and a couple churches that people came down. We were at a point where, in '06, we were going to probably tear down the house, we'd had that much damage in it.
Second speaker: Yeah . . .
First speaker: By the time we decided for sure that's what we were gonna do there were so many people in there scrapin’ wallpaper off the walls and scrubbin’, and we just couldn't walk away from it then.
Cuyahoga River
Henry Fortlage, who grew up in Independence, talks about the Cuyahoga River and why it is prone to floods.
The floods that we get now are common. I mean, I remember the river floods every year. They make a big . . . the paper makes a big thing about it and everything. It's the Cuyahoga River. You have understand it. The Cuyahoga River starts way up east of here in, what, Geauga County? Makes a big U, comes down through Akron, Cuyahoga Falls, Akron, comes right back. So when all the storms come from the west, right? So they blow through the Cuyahoga Valley here, and then they get out there in Geauga and they hit it again, and so it gets a double whammy so . . . so the river will flood pretty easily. And it's probably prone to flooding now more because, so much development the water doesn't soak in. The streams and tributaries will catch all the storm sewers, storm drains, and it's almost instant flooding, you know, for them. It hits the river and the river can't handle it so quickly. It used to take a little while for it to drain out but . . . I always judged how high the river is is by going down to the hillside road. If it's a couple feet under the deck of the bridge, it's pretty high. ~laughs~ I've never seen it any higher than that.
