Washington Canal Floods

On Saturday, September 16, 1843, a violent storm caused the rivers feeding into the Potomac to rise dramatically. The resulting water levels were higher than anyone could remember. When the Potomac River and Washington Canal overflowed their banks, water flooded into the cellars and storage rooms in properties along the waterfronts in the Federal City and Georgetown. It covered one of the bridges across the canal, which connected the Mall with the city, and damaged the supply of some of the local businesses. Flooding like this continued until the 1870s, when engineers brought it somewhat under control.

“Great Flood,” Madisonian for the Country (Washington, DC)

09/18/1843

On Saturday last we published an account of the damage done to buildings and other property in this city and its vicinity by the late equinoctial storm — We not feel ourselves called on to notice much more extensive injuries done to the public and private property in this city and in Georgetown by the unprecedented rising of the water in the Potomac and in the Chesapeake and Ohio and Washington Canals on Saturday last. The water in the Washington Canal completely overflowed its banks, and at the Seventh street bridge was, at ten o'clock P.M., at least two feet higher than the embankment. Most of the cellars on the south side of Pennsylvania Avenue from Seventh street to Second street were deluged with water; and the wood merchants on the margin of the canal and basin suffered considerably. In the low ground of the margin of the canal in the Fifth Ward there was an extensive sheet of water, which rendered some of the streets impassable to foot passengers.