Doing a little research for a friend about Kentucky. The Ohio Flood of 1937 practically wiped out the Town of Greenup....where their family lived. I remember an old diary from about 1800 telling of “the raging Ohio in the Spring”...
I grew up in a town along the Ohio river, it wasn’t the river that did devastation, it was the creeks, especially Ivan 2004.
Every so often the Cincinnati Enquirer publishes pictures of the Cincinnati waterfront throughout history. Up until the 1950s, there were no buildings within 150 yards of the Ohio River. People knew that the Ohio River would flood every so often and they were not stupid enough to build their homes in a flood zone.