Tuesday, July 7, 2009

This Day in Cincinnati History

July 7, 1915 – Windstorm

From the Ohio History Central Online Encyclopedia:

“A vicious wind and rainstorm swept southwestern Ohio on the evening of Wednesday July 7, 1915. The death toll of 38 at Cincinnati is the greatest known in Ohio for a windstorm in which no tornadoes were involved. The wind caused extensive damage throughout Cincinnati and in nearby communities. There were no reports of tornadoes and the damage was all toward one direction, so the wind is presumed to have been the result of thunderstorm microbursts.

“Homes, apartment houses, and commercial buildings were demolished or unroofed by the winds. Wires, signs, trees, cars, and streetcars were blown over in downtown Cincinnati. Most of the deaths were in collapsed buildings although three men died when a train carrying racehorses was blown from the tracks at Terrace Park. An uncertain number of people drowned in overturned boats in the Ohio River. The greatest tragedies developed in the collapse of buildings along West Sixth Street and a house on West Eighth. Eighteen people died in the collapse of five buildings on Sixth Street and another 11 people died when two nearby houses collapsed. Outside of Cincinnati, there was extensive wind damage at Washington Court House and Wilmington, and floods washed out hundreds of bridges in Montgomery County.”


Click here for photos from the Ohio History Central Online Encyclopedia.

Images from the Library’s Cincinnati Memory Project.

For more images from the Cincinnati Memory Project of the damage from the July 7 ‘tornado’ (which is what they called it) and a tornado that struck on March 11, 1917, click here.

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