Franklin F. Snyder
money to the Weather Bureau and they began to install recording rain gauges all
U
over the country into a national network.
About the same time he initiated the other program of having the Weather Bureau
set up a Hydro-meteorological Section, who would make these studies of the
maximum probable precipitation for the Corps' projects. That, again, was funded
by the Corps through direct appropriations showing what it was for. It was not
buried in the regular appropriations. It was an appropriation that was to go to the
Weather Bureau. His principal assistant was Al Cochran.
Q ..
Okay.
A
A little later, a number of the people began to take commissions in the Army and go
into the service. That would have been--well, I transferred from the Weather
Bureau in `42, Hathaway maneuvered that. It was primarily because of the unit
hydrograph studies that Hathaway wanted me to come over and work in the Chief's
Office. About that time, the Weather Bureau, they had some sort of a program
where you could get an increase of 0 a year, and they wouldn't give me one.
Hathaway proposed that I come to the Corps, and I guess it was a promotion
involved, too. I think I went from an assistant to associate, but anyhow, I
transferred then to the Chief's office.
Headquarters, United States Army Corps of Engineers, September 1942
Q ..
Okay. That was in September of '42?
A
Well, September of `42, we had the second highest flood-of-record on the Potomac
River. I had just transferred, but I went back to the Weather Bureau and did the
forecasting. I did a pretty good job of it, too. I think I hit the Washington forecast
within a few tenths of a foot. I was a little high upstream. But, you see, they had
built a bunch of bridges, temporary bridges, across the Potomac. They kind of
screwed things up a little bit, but we tried to estimate for that.
I remember before the crest had arrived, I'd been down at the Weather Bureau
office, I guess, to around midnight or so, and when I was driving home, I stopped
there at the Washington Monument on 17th Street and they were laying sandbags
across the street there to keep the water from--the Reflecting Pool was going to be
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