A documentary screening and talk with historian Hamish Lutris opens History After Hours, alongside a month-long exhibit of photographs and artifacts from six local historical societies.
Friday, August 7, 5–7pm | Winsted, CT |
American Mural Project hosts a documentary screening and talk by historian Hamish Lutris on the Great Flood of 1955 as part of its History After Hours program August 7. The flood was one of the deadliest natural disasters in Connecticut's history, and hit Winsted, where AMP is based, especially hard. The program runs alongside "Inundated: Connecticut's Great Flood of 1955," a month-long exhibit of photographs and artifacts on view through August 29.
The flood was the product of two hurricanes arriving within a week of each other. Hurricane Connie brushed the state in mid-August 1955, saturating the ground with several inches of rain; Hurricane Diane followed on its heels, dumping over a foot more in a single 24-hour period.
The combination sent the Mad and Still Rivers raging through downtown Winsted at an estimated 50 miles per hour, destroying a large swath of the town center that was never rebuilt. The Naugatuck River did similar damage downstream in Torrington, Thomaston, and Waterbury, washing away bridges, homes, and businesses.
Statewide, 87 people died and damages topped $200 million in 1955 dollars—a catastrophe that effectively split Connecticut in two by destroying bridges and communications infrastructure, and that led directly to the construction of major flood control dams still in use today, including the Thomaston Dam and the Hall Meadow Brook Dam.
The exhibit draws photographs and artifacts from historical societies and libraries in Winsted, New Hartford, Torrington, Barkhamsted, Unionville, and Collinsville—six communities across the Naugatuck and Farmington River valleys that all absorbed damage that week.
Rather than treating the flood purely as disaster history, the show is framed around resilience: how the region's workers, industries, and communities responded and rebuilt in the years that followed. It's included with regular AMP admission and on view Fridays and Saturdays 10am to 5pm, Sundays noon to 5pm.
American Mural Project, 90 Whiting St., Winsted, CT. Tickets at eventbrite.com.
