Word: shawneetown
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...some 1,500 residents of Shawneetown, Ill., sheltered behind their 60-foot flood wall, lost contact with Harrisburg, Ill., 23 miles away. The great Ohio Basin flood had cut them off from their nearest municipal neighbors and the world. As the flood waters rose, a Harrisburg ham (amateur short-wave operator), Robert Tompkins Anderson, volunteered to set up an observation post as near as he could get to Shawneetown and establish two-way radio communication with relief agencies that were trying to bring help...
...truck and boat (equipped with only one paddle), Amateur Anderson ferried his transmitter and receiver to a high spot six miles across the flood-swollen Wabash River from Shawneetown. When it became obvious that the Ohio would spill over Shawneetown's flood wall, Shawneetown's residents were evacuated to Indiana and Kentucky on orders received over Ham Anderson's radio. Evacuation was effected without loss of a single life. And after four raw, wet, sleepless days and nights, Ham Anderson went home...