March 4, 1955 – Black River Flooding

Sixty years ago today – March 4, 1955 – the Black River overflowed its banks and flooded Cascade Park, as well as many basements and stores in Elyria.

According to the article featured on the front page of the Lorain Journal above, the Black River flooded 17 feet over its banks in Cascade Park. Basements in areas of Elyria where new storm sewers were recently installed were filled with three to four feet of water.

Let's hope history doesn't repeat itself in March 2015.

It can always be worse, I guess. Elsewhere on that same front page, lava fountains were shooting 300 to 400 feet in the air near the village of Kapoho in Hawaii, where the three mile long east rift of Kilauea volcano was "a mass of seething, blood-colored lava." All of the village's 335 residents had to evacuate.

Also on the front page of the Journal: the planned widening of Colorado Avenue; the death of the richest nun in the world; the announcement of the largest single private home building program ever announced for northeastern Ohio; and what to do if your brand new 1955 Ohio license plates were peeling.