Hello Everybody:
I am very pleased to announce that The Miami Valley Cooperative Gallery,
the Dayton & Montgomery County Public Library and the Miami Conservancy
District have received a grant from the Ohio Humanities Council and will
sponsored a symposium October 18, 2002 at the Engineers' Club of Dayton
on "Preserving the Memories of the Great Dayton Flood."
As the year 2003 approaches, which will mark both Ohio's bicentennial
and the 90th anniversary of the 1913 flood, it would be appropriate that
Ohioans be reminded and become aware of major flood control engineering
programs in Ohio History.  Starting in 1915 the Morgan Engineering
Company of Memphis, Tennessee, studied the flood control problem in the
Dayton area, with principal partner Arthur E. Morgan assuming personal
responsibility. Morgan’s engineering brilliance in flood control and
drainage was recognized nationally.  He was responsible for the ultimate
technical success of the entire project of the Miami Valley Flood
Prevention Association.  Since their completion at the end of 1922, the
dams have held back waters on over 1000 occasions, and at no time has
more than 60 per cent of the capacity been reached.  Of course this does
not mean that serious flooding would otherwise have resulted on every
such occasion, but as of 1983 it is estimated that the Conservancy
District has prevented $235,000,000 in flood damages.  Engineers
estimate that in 1959 a major flood of the Great Miami would have
occurred had it not been for the District’s flood control work.
Downtown Dayton would have been covered with five to twenty feet of
water.  So, if 1913 was the year of the Flood, 1959 was, thanks to the
Miami Conservancy District, the year of the flood that wasn’t.

Dayton and southwestern Ohio became the center of the nation's early
flood control efforts, adding to Ohio's already existing reputation as a
center of invention and high-technology industry.  The Miami Conservancy
District of Dayton is the nation's oldest and best-known private company
assisting over the years in flood control.  It has changed the way in
which federal government agencies work with local governments in
addressing this problem.
The objective of this one-day symposium is threefold, including:

¨ A symposium at the Dayton Engineers Club featuring flood survivor
Charles Adams (one of the famous "flood twins"), humanities scholars Dr.
Una Cadegan and Dr. Carl Becker, humanist, author, and local historian
Roz Young, and Doug Johnson, Chief Engineer of the Miami Conservancy
District, with opening address by Tim Kambitsch, Director of the Dayton
and Montgomery County Public Library.

¨ Two public photographic exhibits of the Dayton Flood (held at the
Dayton Engineers Club and Downtown-Dayton YMCA), including 25 original,
preserved glass and emulsion negatives taken by the father of Charles
Adams, as well as high quality photographs, from the archives of the
Miami Conservancy District and the DPCPL.

¨ Publication of the symposium proceedings, including the gripping story
of Dayton's Flood Twins, cast adrift in a boat from their home, written
by Charles Adams, one of the Flood Twins and among the few living
survivors of the Flood.

For more information, please contact Elli Bambakids at (937) 227-9500
ext. 333 or 323.
Hope many of you will attend.
Elli Bambakidis

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