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on noon of August 20,1955 President Eisenhower declared
Connecticut a major disaster area.
For the first 17 days of August over 6 inches of rain had fallen, before noon on the 18th another 8 inches of rain
had been recorded. On August 19th at about 1:42 in the morning the river began to rise rapidly. The flood hit with
such fury that as many as 500 people in the Waterbury-Naugatuck area had to be rescued by helicopter. In effect the
river divided the city in two. The hardest hit areas were the Brooklyn section and the area around Riverside Street.
Most of the houses in the North Riverside Sreet area being of wooden frame construction were quickly washed away. Those
that remained were condemned by the Health Department. At about 8:10 the Freight Street bridge collapses leaving only two
bridges spanning the river in Waterbury. It was reported that wreckage was found in Long Island Sound, which is approximately
30 miles south of Waterbury.
The river did not begin to return to its banks until 9:00 that night. Brigader General Robert Fleming,Jr, of
the Army Corp of Engineers likened the destruction to what he saw when the American forces crossed the Rhine River
into Germany during World War ll. The loss of life in Waterbury was 24 killed with 5 listed as missing and 115
injuried. The damage total was estimated at 150 million(in the Naugatuck River valley) including 85 buildings destroyed.
Although it took a week to restore power, it was well into September before gas service was restored and municipal water
was declared safe to drink.
State Library flood of 1955
State aerial photos
The cost of building the dams in the Naugatuck river basin was approximately
42 million dollars, and the cost of building the local protection projects was approximately 30 million dollars.
The dams have prevented 776 million dollars and the LPP’s 152 million dollars, which is nearly a 14:1 cost
benefit ratio.
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