All streams reached flood stage from January 21 to 24, killing 16 people, forcing 49,000 from their homes, and causing extensive damage to homes, businesses, roads, and bridges. Classic winter flood conditions existed across Ohio during January 1959. This is a view from a plane over the swollen Sandusky River at the State Street Bridge in Fremont, Ohio during the 1959 flood.
Soil frozen a foot deep was overlain by a snow cover. A band of heavy rain fell across central Ohio on the headwaters of many of the state’s largest rivers, causing the snow to melt and, with frozen ground, nearly all of the water poured into streams.
The streets of Mansfield were under four feet of water and industries were closed by floodwaters in Youngstown and Canton. High water and ice jams on the Sandusky River flooded Upper Sandusky, Tiffin, and Fremont. Deaths and damage were much less than in the March 1913 flood because the January 1959 flood was less intense, flood-control reservoirs were built after 1913, and there was better communication of warnings, organized rescue work, and more adequate design of bridges and other structures.
The flood levels of January 1959 were the highest since March 1913 and the second or third highest on record.