Readers looked to The Courier for information on vaccine clinics, U.S. mail operations, available roads and rail services, and sites for safe drinking water. Daily photographs brought incredible flood scenes from hundred s of miles up and down the Ohio.

Courier photographer Thomas O. Mueller spent much of his time that January riding around the city on Red Cross boats. A series of dramatic photos taken on Jan. 29 captured the rescue of two Red Cross official s who had fallen from their boats during an inspection.

By the time the river crested on Feb. 1, Mueller had taken hundreds of photographs of houses flooded to their rooftops, Downtown buildings half submerged, rescue crews in boats and vehicles and fam ilies finding refuge at area shelters.

About half of the city's residential areas had been flooded when the water stopped rising, and most businesses and schools were shut down during the flood.

Remarkably, electricity and natural gas had been maintai n ed throughout most of the city - except where the water presented safety hazards. Limited amounts of water were available to most, but residents were warned to boil it before using it.

While food and shelter presented big problems for the Evansville are a, the city was spared the degree of death and hardship the flood brought to many other river communities. As the river began its slow fall, The Courier reported on the floods along the southern Mississippi River.

Mueller's photographs captured differen t local scenes by the second week of February. The water left behind hundreds of buildings destroyed or full of trash, mud and ruined furnishings. Works Progress Administration workers took up wire brooms and shovels to clear the streets of mud and deb ris.

Refugees began returning to the city - finding temporary shelter at the YMCA, Servel factory, Chrysler plant, American Legion home and Lincoln High School.

Just as recovery efforts got under way, squall winds ripped through the city on Feb. 9, d emolishing several homes and buildings and damaging many others.

"Missed by Flood Hit by Wind," the headline said of two demolished homes on North Elliott Street and East Maryland Street.

By Feb. 14, most Evansville schools had opened and a large numb er of factories and businesses had received permission to resume operations. The WPA assisted in getting the business district and other facilities into usable condition. And families began to rummage through what was left of their homes, making claims to insurance agencies and Red Cross relief funds.

The flood of 1913, with its record 48.4-foot stage, had been outdone by the Great Flood of 1937.