Franklin F. Snyder
Q ..
There are a lot of those developments and multiple housing units that.
A
Well, Buckingham is a little bit like it. Buckingham was built a little bit later. But
Ring first built Colonial Village, right out of Rosslyn there, which was converted
to condominiums. They made them preserve a piece of it. Of course, the original
builder had sold it. The owner was required to maintain a piece of it as what do you
call it when you preserve?
Q ..
Historic preservation?
A ..
Yes, yes. But anyhow, we were real fortunate to get in there. It was very nice
living there. Of course, then part of my job in the Washington Office of the
Weather Bureau was to do the river forecasting on the Potomac River, which was
a function of that office. The man I think that had been doing it, I don't suppose he
was too happy to have me arrive, but I think maybe one of the senior men had
passed on or something, so the chap that was my assistant had never really been in
charge. We had no trouble about that.
So I started developing the same type of river forecasting charts for the Potomac
River. About that time, this Professor Powell from Ohio State contacted me to see
if I was interested in getting a professional CE Degree from Ohio State. Of course,
I was. So I used the development of the river and flood procedures for the Potomac
River Basin as my thesis. One of the requirements for the professional degree was
a thesis, an approved thesis. I went through the red tape of getting it approved.
But also, my job was to travel around to the various river districts that had a
forecasting office located at one of the Weather Bureau offices. Generally, the
forecaster was the official in charge. In other words, they didn't have a separate
organization. The official in charge also did the river forecasting. My job was to
try to get these people to put their knowledge on paper. As I said, most of them,
they had it in their heads and a lot of them did a real good job, but when they left
there was nothing left there for the next man.
So while doing that, I also for a lot of these river basins started developing the
forecastingprocedures. I don't know how many. I suspect I developed the
forecasting procedures for more river basins than anybody ever has. But that
traveling around didn't make my wife happy. I guess I told you she passed away in
January, did I?
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