One of the projects I've been working on lately is scanning in all the old pictures my parents have collected over the years from various relatives. My grandparents in particular had a lot of old photos. While scanning pictures in this morning I came across a number of them that seemed to be of a flood. I noticed two of them had the processing date on the back of the photo and decided to do a little research. I googled for 'Hartford Flood 1936' and actually came up with a fair number of hits. From one page:

On March 12, 1936, rain began falling across Connecticut. The state had already been covered with a blanket of six to eight inches of snow. Rains poured down for the next nine days and dropped up to fourteen inches on already saturated and frozen land. These incredible forces of nature unleashed on Connecticut the greatest floods in its history to that date. The Connecticut and Farmington Rivers and all of their tributaries became raging torrents. Ice flows added to the destruction. Water and ice tore out bridges, highways, roads, and railways. The dam at New Hartford burst, and homes and buildings were washed away or destroyed. Fourteen thousand people were left homeless, several were dead or missing, and epidemic disease threatened the population. The National Guard was called to action as the ravaging floods paralyzed business, traffic, communication, and home life, as the cities and towns along the rivers became the principal centers of destruction.

I think the thing I'm boggling at the most is how easy it was to dig up all this information. A few words into a search engine and I was greeted with gobs of information about this event. I still find it amazing, even after being online so long.