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The River: When the Ohio River leaves its banks, it can claim every inch between the hills around it


The riverboat captain is a storyteller, and Captain Don Sanders will be sharing the stories of his long association with the river — from discovery to a way of love and life. This a part of a long and continuing story. This column first appears in February, 2020, but since the river ir rising . . .

By Capt. Don Sanders
Special to NKyTribune

Every inch of ground between the hills lining the valley of the Ohio belongs to the river.

Periodically, Old Man River leaves the comfort of his usually secure banks and takes inventory of his property lying outside our comfort zone. The human-animal calls this incursion a “flood,” Mr. River, though, smiles and says he’s “just visiting.” By the time you are reading this, the Ohio River Guage on the Covington & Cincinnati Highway Bridge ought to be hovering around 53-and-a-half feet. Fifty-two feet is officially Flood Stage.

Although 52 feet is considered a “minor flood,” the Anderson Ferry crossing between Constance, Kentucky and Western Cincinnati closed before noon on Thursday the 13th with this announcement.

Although 52-feet is considered a “minor flood,” the Anderson Ferry crossing between Constance, Kentucky and Western Cincinnati closed before noon on Thursday the 13th with this announcement: “Due to the Ohio River reaching/exceeding flood stage, for the safety of our guests, crew, and equipment, we will have to suspend ferry operations beginning today, Thursday, February 13th at 11 a.m. This closure may last several days until the river drops back below flood stage.”  

Captain Josh Lakin, Senior Captain of the LUCKY LADY ferry running between Rising Sun and Rabbit Hash, reported his operation shut down three days before the Anderson Ferry. “It’s not looking good,” Cap’n Josh sadly said. “We probably won’t get to running again until next Wednesday or Thursday.”  

Waiting for the river level to subside to safer levels, Captain Lakin brought his ferryboat downstream and tied it behind my old boat, the GRAND VICTORIA II. Together, they looked like a family.

Waiting for the river level to subside to safer levels, Captain Lakin brought his ferryboat downstream and tied it behind my old boat, the GRAND VICTORIA II.

Around Aurora, Indiana, upstream from Josh’s ferry where I live, folks looked nervously over their shoulders at the river, wondering if it will get into town this time. The small river village elected, long ago, not to build a protective levee around its borders to safeguard the community from periodic inundations of the wandering waters. A dousing, now and then, is the price Aurora pays for an unobstructed view of the river. Most residents consider the matter a fair trade with many freely lending a hand cleaning the muck and debris the Ohio leaves in its wake as it returns to its respectable quarter. 

In the days, not so long ago, while the Senior Master of the GRAND VIC, I always drilled my crew in what politically-correct vernacular now mandates as “Person Overboard” drills. Heaven forbid getting caught calling them “Man Overboard.”

A dousing, now and then, is the price Aurora pays for an unobstructed view of the river.

When the river was raging and chocked with drift and flotsam, my deckhands trained on the formidable tide. I figured that was when they needed to sharpen their lifesaving skills the most. It was far better becoming familiar with a malevolent river during training than meet mean waters for the first time during actual emergency conditions. Wouldn’t you agree?

Besides, after entering the facts of the drill into the logbook, I enjoyed a ride up the river in the outboard-powered rescue boat with a Lead Deckhand driving. Usually, Frank Jones, Andy Rollins, or Adam Smith were behind the wheel. When the aluminum jonboat reached the upper limits of our operational territory, I would announce, “Engine trouble!”

As the boat operator stopped the outboard motor, I’d break out the oars for a row back to the mothership. Quite often, I allowed the boat to drift with the current. Our ark, floating alongside a lazy, drowned tree, seemed motionless upon the water until a glance ashore revealed both we and the driftwood flying along at a breakneck clip downstream in the direction toward New Orleans and the sea.   

Flood time was perfect for “beachcombing,” as Tom Sanders, the Grand Victoria Marine Director, defined the sport of scrounging floating objects from the river and along the shore. Quite often, people upriver are caught by surprise when the river suddenly leaps. Outdoor furniture, bottle gas tanks, and even a motorboat strapped to its trailer sailed by the gambling boat as I watched from the pilothouse.

As the boat operator stopped the outboard motor, I’d break out the oars for a row back to the mothership. Quite often, I allowed the boat to drift with the current.

One of our captains rescued a large tank half-full of propane gas he took home after waiting a reasonable time for someone to announce their tank was missing. Soon, with so much river plunder lying about the big boat and on the landing barge, Mr. Sanders gave the order, “No more beachcombing.” Reluctantly we scroungers obeyed, except, perhaps, for an occasional treasure floating close-enough to reach with a long pike pole.  

The highest flood during the GRAND VICTORIA II days happened in March 1997 the day after I left the boat on my time off. A most-odd weather pattern in the Gulf of Mexico lifted a sea of water and sent it sailing overhead toward the Ohio River Valley, spreading death and destruction in its wake. By the time the historic maelstrom crested at 64.48 feet, 25 ½ feet below the record of the 1937 Flood, 33 people along the Ohio River had lost their lives and over a half-billion dollars in property damage occurred, according to reports of the time. My father, Jess Sanders, Jr., made an interesting observation, “The river went up faster this time (1997) than it did in 1937.”

In 1993, the floodwaters found their way into places residents had no idea they could reach.

Though I was at home in Metropolis, Illinois, during the ‘97 flooding, rumors still found their way to Southern Illinois. They told of my relief captain known for taking extraordinary chances with the casino vessel carrying 3,000 passengers and crew at maximum capacity, cruising the GRAND VIC when the Ohio River was a turbid millrace choked with mind-boggling debris. Some said a house, or two, went sailing by at night. Thankfully, safer-thinking minds grounded “Kaptain Kamakazi” until the flood passed downstream toward my locale on the lower end of the river. There, the floodwaters found their way into places residents had no idea they could reach. One newly built home soaked in the backwaters for nearly a month while the puzzled homeowners scratched their heads in disbelief that their new home, some two miles inland from the river, could lie submerged beneath the water.  

Perhaps, the oddest flood waters I’ve witnessed were also at Metropolis. The Great Flood on the Upper Mississippi River of 1993 lasted from May through September. Metropolis, just 38 miles upstream from where the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers meet, escaped the wrath of the flood. Instead, the raging “Father of Waters,” the Mississippi, backed-up the Ohio and made it into a deep, placid lake. After the high waters eventually subsided, I missed cruising “Lake Metropolis.”  

With “climate change” supposedly responsible for the odd ways the weather’s been behaving, the present episode of “high water” is likely only an exploratory investigation Old Man River’s taking to map out more extensive plans he’s contemplating for later this Spring. Watch for further developments as the river creeps higher and higher.

Aurora Flood 2019 — Watch for further developments as the river creeps higher and higher.

Captain Don Sanders is a river man. He has been a riverboat captain with the Delta Queen Steamboat Company and with Rising Star Casino. He learned to fly an airplane before he learned to drive a “machine” and became a captain in the USAF. He is an adventurer, a historian, and a storyteller. Now, he is a columnist for the NKyTribune and will share his stories of growing up in Covington and his stories of the river. Hang on for the ride — the river never looked so good. 


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3 Comments

  1. Michael Gore says:

    Insightful stories that remind us that the floodplain is ultimately owned and controlled by the unwanted squatter named Flood. Thanks, Capt. Don, for sharing about life upon and in the flood.

  2. Connie Bays says:

    I remember a water rescue of another sort, back in the 70’s, when some cruel person tied two kittens to a plank of wood and set in adrift in the Great Kanawha River. You and our friend Todd Mace, responded to the kittens cries, and went out and rescued them. They were named PA and Denny and became the mascots of the PA Denny Sternwheeler. The article in the newspaper about the kittens rescue, is what told me about the Denny and drew me to the boat at the tender age of 14. There began my love and fascination for the river. I truly enjoy reading your stories. Some, reminding me of things I was aware of, but more so, things that I hadn’t heard, and many more lessons about life on the river.

  3. Michael Garrity says:

    The local Cincinnati based band “Buffalo Wabs and the Price Hill Hustle” do a great cover of a song titled: “Get Down River.” It’s on their “Revival” album. It’s a humorous take on living with a river when it decides to bite back.

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