Thrilling Experiences.
JOHNSTOWN, Pa., June 3, 1889.--Innumerable tales of thrilling individual
experiences, each one more horrible than the others, are told.
Frank McDonald, a conductor on the Somerset branch of the Baltimore and
Ohio, was at the Pennsylvania Railroad depot in this place when the
flood came. He says that when he first saw the flood it was thirty feet
high and gradually rose to at least forty feet.
"There is no doubt that the South Fork Dam was the cause of the
disaster," said Mr. McDonald. "Fifteen minutes before the flood came
Decker, the Pennsylvania Railroad agent read me a telegram that he had
just received saying that the South Fork Dam had broken. As soon as he
heard this the people in station, numbering six hundred, made a rush for
a hill. I certainly think I saw one thousand bodies go over the bridge.
The first house that came down struck the bridge and at once took fire,
and as fast as the others came down they were consumed.
Saw a Thousand Persons Burn.
"I believe I am safe in saying that I saw one thousand bodies burn. It
reminded me of a lot of flies on fly paper struggling to get away, with
no hope and no chance to save them.
[Illustration: THE WRECKED HOUSES BURNING AT THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD
BRIDGE.]
"I have no idea that had the bridge been blown up the loss of life
would have been any less. They would have floated a little further with
the same certain death. Then, again, it was impossible for any one to
have reached the bridge in order to blow it out, for the waters came so
fast that no one could have done it.
"I saw fifteen to eighteen bodies go over the bridge at the same time.
"I offered a man $20 to row me across the river, but could get no one to
go, and finally had to build a boat and get across that way."
It required some exercise of acrobatic agility to get into or out of the
town. A slide, a series of frightful tosses from side to side, a run and
you had crossed the narrow rope bridge which spanned the chasm dug by
the waters between the stone bridge and Johnstown. Crossing the bridge
was an exciting task. Yet many women accomplished it rather than remain
in Johnstown. The bridge pitched like a ship in a storm. Within two
inches of your feet rushed the muddy waters of the Conemaugh. There were
no ropes to guide one and creeping was more convenient than walking.
One had to cross the Conemaugh at a second point in order to reach
Johnstown proper. This was accomplished by a skiff ferry. The ferryman
clung to a rope and pulled the load over.
Confusion Worse Confounded.
It is impossible to describe the appearance of Main street. Whole houses
have been swept down this one street and become lodged. The wreck is
piled as high as the second story windows. The reporter could step from
the wreck into the auditorium of the Opera House. The ruins consists of
parts of houses, trees, saw logs, reels from the wire factory. Many
houses have their side walls and roofs torn up, and you can walk
directly into what had been second story bedrooms, or go in by way of
the top. Further up town a raft of logs lodged in the street and did
great damage.
The best way to get an idea of the wreck is to take a number of
children's blocks, place them closely together and draw your hand
through them.
At the commencement of the wreckage, which is at the opening of the
valley of the Conemaugh, one can look up the valley for miles and not
see a house. Nothing stands but an old woolen mill.
As Seen by an Eye-Witness.
Charles Luther is the name of the boy who stood on an adjacent elevation
and saw the whole flood. He said he heard a grinding noise far up the
valley, and looking up he could see a dark line moving slowly toward
him. He saw that it was made up of houses. On they came like the hand of
a giant clearing off his tables. High in the air would be tossed a log
or beam, which fell back with a crash. Down the valley it moved sedately
and across the little mountain city. For ten minutes nothing but moving
houses were seen, and then the waters came with a roar and a rush. This
lasted for two hours, and then it began to flow more steadily.
The pillaging of the houses in Johnstown is something awful to
contemplate and describe. It makes one feel almost ashamed to call
himself a man and know that others who bear the same name have converted
themselves into human vultures, preying on the dead. Men are carrying
shotguns and revolvers, and woe betide the stranger who looks even
suspiciously at any article. Goods of great value were being sold in
town to-day for a drink of whiskey.
A supply store has been established in the Fourth ward in Johnstown. A
line of men, women and children, extending for a square, waited
patiently to have their wants supplied.
An Improvised Morgue.
The school house has been converted into a morgue, and the dead are
being buried from this place. A hospital has been opened near by and is
full of patients. One of the victims was removed from a piece of
wreckage in which he had been imprisoned three days. His leg was broken
and his face badly bruised. He was delirious when rescued.
In some places it is said the railroad tracks were scooped out to a
depth of twenty feet. A train of cars, all loaded, were run on the
Conemaugh bridge. They, with the bridge, now lie in the wreckage at this
point. The Pennsylvania Railroad loses thirty-five engines and many
cars.
Fire Still Raging.
The cling-cling-clang of the engines has a homelike sound. The fire has
spread steadily all day and the upper part of the drift is burning
to-night. The fire engine is stationed on the river bank and a line of
hose laid far up the track to the coal mine. The flames to-night are
higher than ever before, and by its light long lines of the curious can
be seen along the banks.
[Illustration: FIREMEN ON DUTY AT THE BRIDGE.]
The natural gas has been shut off, owing to the many leaks in Johnstown.
No fire is allowed in the city. The walls of many houses are falling.
Their crash can be heard across the river, where the newspaper men are
located. In the walk through the town to-day the word "danger," could be
noticed, painted by the rescuers on the walls.
Cremated.
One of the Catholic churches in the town was burned on Saturday. A house
drifted down against it and set it on fire. A funeral was being held at
the church at the time of the flood. The congregation deserted the
church and the body was burned with the building. Two large trees passed
entirely through a brick Catholic church located near the centre of the
town. The building still stands, but is a total wreck.
Colonel Norman M. Smith, of Pittsburgh, while returning from Johnstown
after a visit to Adjutant General Hastings, was knocked from the
temporary bridge into the river and carried down stream a couple of
hundred yards before he was able to swim ashore. He was not hurt.
A Lucky Escape.
O.J. Palmer, travelling salesman for a Pittsburgh meat house, was on the
ill-fated day express, one car of which was washed away. He narrowly
escaped drowning, and tells a horrible tale of his experience on that
occasion. The engineer, the fireman and himself, when they saw the flood
coming, got upon the top of the car, and when the coach was carried away
they caught the driftwood, and fortunately it was carried near the shore
and they escaped to the hills. Mr. Palmer walked a distance of twenty
miles around the flooded district to a nearby railroad station on this
side.
Freaks of the Disaster.
A novel scene was witnessed yesterday near Johnstown borough. Some women
who managed to escape from the town proper had to wear men's clothes, as
their own had been torn off by the flood.
The force of the flood can be estimated by the fact that it carried
three cars a mile and a half and the tender of an engine weighing twelve
tons was carried fourteen miles down the river. A team of horses which
was standing on Main street just before the flood was found a mile and a
quarter below the town yesterday.
The damage to the Cambria Iron Works was not so great as at first
reported. The ends of the blooming mill and open hearth furnace
buildings were crushed in by the force of the flood. The water rushed
through the mill and tore a great pile of machinery from its fastenings
and caused other damage. The Bessemer steel mill is almost a ruin. The
rolling and wire mills and the six blast furnaces were not much damaged.
This morning the company put a large force of men at work and are making
strenuous efforts to have at least a portion of the plant in operation
within a few weeks. This has given encouragement to the stricken people
of Johnstown, and they now seem to have some hope, although so many of
their loved ones have met their death. The mill yard, with its numerous
railroad tracks, is nothing but a waste. Large piles of pig metal were
scattered in every direction. All the loose debris is being gathered
into heaps and burned.
Hurled to a Place of Safety.
A pitiful sight was that of an old, gray haired man named Norn. He was
walking around among the mass of debris, looking for his family. He had
just sat down to eat his supper when the crash came, and the whole
family, consisting of wife and eight children, were buried beneath the
collapsed house. He was carried down the river to the railroad bridge on
a plank. Just at the bridge a cross-tie struck him with such force that
he was shot clear upon the pier and was safe. But he is a mass of
bruises and cuts from head to foot. He refused to go to the hospital
until he found the bodies of his loved ones.
Heroism in Bright Relief.
A Paul Revere lies somewhere among the dead. Who he is is now known, and
his ride will be famous in history. Mounted on a grand, big bay horse,
he came riding down the pike which passes through Conemaugh to
Johnstown, like some angel of wrath of old, shouting his warning: "Run
for your lives to the hills! Run to the hills!"
A Cloud of Ruin.
The people crowded out of their houses along the thickly settled streets
awe-struck and wondering. No one knew the man, and some thought he was a
maniac and laughed. On and on, at a deadly pace, he rode, and shrilly
rang out his awful cry. In a few moments, however, there came a cloud of
ruin down the broad streets, down the narrow alleys, grinding, twisting,
hurling, overturning, crashing--annihilating the weak and the strong. It
was the charge of the flood, wearing its coronet of ruin and
devastation, which grew at every instant of its progress. Forty feet
high, some say, thirty according to others, was this sea, and it
travelled with a swiftness like that which lay in the heels of Mercury.
On and on raced the rider, on and on rushed the wave. Dozens of people
took heed of the warning and ran up to the hills.
Poor, faithful rider, it was an unequal contest. Just as he turned to
cross the railroad bridge the mighty wall fell upon him, and horse,
rider and bridge all went out into chaos together.
A few feet further on several cars of the Pennsylvania Railroad train
from Pittsburgh were caught up and hurried into the caldron, and the
heart of the town was reached.
The hero had turned neither to right nor left for himself, but rode on
to death for his townsmen. He was overwhelmed by the current at the
bridge and drowned. A party of searchers found the body of this man and
his horse. He was still in the saddle. In a short time the man was
identified as Daniel Periton, son of a merchant of Johnstown, a young
man of remarkable courage. He is no longer the unknown hero, for the
name of Daniel Periton will live in fame as long as the history of this
calamity is remembered by the people of this country.
A Devoted Operator.
Mrs. Ogle, the manager of the Western Union, who died at her post, will
go down in history as a heroine of the highest order. Notwithstanding
the repeated notifications which she received to get out of reach of the
approaching danger, she stood by the instruments with unflinching
loyalty and undaunted courage, sending words of warning to those in
danger in the valley below. When every station in the path of the coming
torrent had been warned she wired her companion at South Fork, "This is
my last message," and as such it shall always be remembered as her last
words on earth, for at that very moment the torrent engulfed her and
bore her from her post on earth to her post of honor in the great
beyond.
Another Hero.
A telegraph operator at the railroad station above Mineral Point, which
is just in the gorge a short distance below the dam, and the last
telegraph station above Conemaugh, had seen the waters rising, and had
heard of the first break in the dam. Two hours before the final break
came he sent a message to his wife at Mineral Point to prepare for the
flood. It read: "Dress the three children in their best Sunday clothes.
Gather together what valuables you can easily carry and leave the house.
Go to the stable on the hillside. Stay there until the water reaches
it; then run to the mountain. The dam is breaking. The flood is coming.
Lose no time."
His wife showed the message to her friends, but they laughed at her.
They even persuaded her to not heed her husband's command. The wife went
home and about her work. Meanwhile the telegraph operator was busy with
his ticker. Down to Conemaugh he wired the warning. He also sent it on
to Johnstown, then he ticked on, giving each minute bulletins of the
break. As the water came down he sent message after message, telling its
progress. Finally came the flood. He saw houses and bodies swept past
him. His last message was: "The water is all around me; I cannot stay
longer, and, for God's sake, all fly." Then he jumped out of his tower
window and ran up the mountain just in time to save himself. A whole
town came past as he turned and looked. Great masses of houses plunged
up. He saw people on roofs yelling and crying, and then saw collisions
of houses, which caused the buildings to crush and crumble like paper.
Racing with Death.
All the time he felt that his family were safe. But it was not so with
them. When the roar of approaching water came the people of Mineral
Point thought of their warning. The wife gathered her children and
started to run. As she went she forgot her husband's advice to go to the
mountain and fled down the street to the lowlands. Suddenly she
remembered she had left the key of her home in the door. She took the
children and ran back. As she neared the house the water came and forced
them up between the two houses. The only outlet was toward the mountain,
and she ran that way with her children. The water chased her, but she
and the children managed to clamber up far enough to escape. Thus it was
that an accident saved their lives. Only three houses and a school-house
were saved at Mineral Point.
A Dangerous Venture.
One of the most thrilling incidents of the disaster was the performance
of A.J. Leonard, whose family reside in Morrellville. He was at work,
and hearing that his house had been swept away determined at all hazards
to ascertain the fate of his family. The bridges having been carried
away he constructed a temporary raft, and clinging to it as close as a
cat to the side of a fence, he pushed his frail craft out into the
raging torrent and started on a chase which, to all who were watching,
seemed to mean an embrace in death.
Heedless of cries "For God's sake go back, you will be drowned." "Don't
attempt it," he persevered. As the raft struck the current he pulled off
his coat and in his shirt sleeves braved the stream. Down plunged the
boards and down went Leonard, but as it arose he was seen still
clinging. A mighty shout arose from the throats of the hundreds on the
banks, who were now deeply interested, earnestly hoping he would
successfully ford the stream.
Down again went his bark, but nothing, it seemed, could shake Leonard
off. The craft shot up in the air apparently ten or twelve feet, and
Leonard stuck to it tenaciously. Slowly but surely he worked his boat to
the other side of the stream, and after what seemed an awful suspense he
finally landed amid ringing cheers of men, women and children.
The last seen of him he was making his way down a mountain road in the
direction of the spot where his house had lately stood. His family
consisted of his wife and three children.
A Thrilling Escape.
Henry D. Thomas, a well-known dry goods merchant, tells the following
story: "I was caught right between a plank and a stone wall and was held
in that position for a long time. The water came rushing down and forced
the plank against my chest. I felt as if it were going through me, when
suddenly the plank gave way, and I fell into the water. I grabbed the
plank quickly and in some unaccountable way managed to get the forepart
of my body on it, and in that way I was carried down the stream. All
around me were people struggling and drowning, while bodies floated like
corks on the water. Some were crying for help, others were praying aloud
for mercy and a few were singing as if to keep up their courage.
A large raft which went by bore a whole family, and they were singing,
'Nearer my God to Thee.' In the midst of their song the raft struck a
large tree and went to splinters. There were one or two wild cries and
then silence. The horror of that time is with me day and night. It would
have driven a weak-minded person crazy.
"The true condition of things that night can never be adequately
described in words. The water came down through a narrow gorge, which in
places was hardly two hundred feet wide. The broken dam was at an
elevation of about five hundred feet above Johnstown. The railroad
bridge across the Conemaugh River is at the lower side of Johnstown, and
the river is joined there by another mountain stream from the northeast.
It was here that the debris collected and caught fire, and I doubt if it
will ever be known how many perished there. The water came down with the
speed of a locomotive. The people there are absolutely paralyzed--so
much so that they speak of their losses in a most indifferent way. I
heard two men in conversation. One said: 'Well, I lost a wife and three
children.' 'That's nothing,' said the other; 'I lost a wife and six
children.'"
The Sudden Break.
A man named Maguire was met on his way from South Fork to Johnstown. He
said he was standing on the edge of the lake when the walls burst. The
waters were rising all day and were on a level with a pile of dirt which
he said was above the walls of the dam. All of a sudden it burst with a
report like a cannon and the water started down the mountain side,
sweeping before it the trees as if they were chips. Bowlders were rolled
down as if they were marbles. The roar was deafening. The lake was
emptied in an hour.
At the time there were about forty men at work up there, building a new
draining system at the lake for Messrs. Parke and Van Buren. They did
all they could to try and avert the disaster by digging a sluiceway on
one side to ease the pressure on the dam, but their efforts were
fruitless.
"It was about half-past two o'clock when the water reached the top of
the dam. At first it was just a narrow white stream trickling down the
face of the dam, soon its proportions began to grow with alarming
rapidity, and in an extremely short space of time a volume of water a
foot in thickness was passing over the top of the dam.
"There had been little rain up to dark. Whatever happened in the way of
a cloud burst took place during the night. When the workmen woke in the
morning the lake was very full and was rising at the rate of a foot an
hour.
"When at two o'clock the water began to flow over the dam, the work of
undermining began. Men were sent three or four times during the day
To Warn the People
below of their danger. At three o'clock there was a sound like
tremendous and continued peals of thunder. The earth seemed to shake and
vibrate beneath our feet.
"There was a rush of wind, the trees swayed to and fro, the air was full
of fine spray or mist: then looking down just in front of the dam we saw
trees, rocks and earth shot up into mid-air in great columns. It seemed
as though some great unseen force was at work wantonly destroying
everything; then the great wave, foaming, boiling and hissing, dashing
clouds of spray hundreds of feet in height as it came against some
obstruction in the way of its mad rush, clearing everything away before
it, started on its terrible death-dealing mission down the fatal
valley."
Engineer Henry's Awful Race.
Engineer Henry, of the second section of the express train, No. 8, which
was caught at Conemaugh, tells a thrilling story. His train was caught
in the midst of the wave and were the only cars that were not destroyed.
"It was an awful sight," he said. "I have often seen pictures of flood
scenes, and I thought they were exaggerations, but what I witnessed last
Friday changes my former belief. To see that immense volume of water,
fully fifty feet high, rushing madly down the valley, sweeping
everything before it, was a thrilling sight. It is engraved indelibly on
my memory. Even now I can see that mad torrent carrying death and
destruction before it.
"The second section of No. 8, on which I was, was due at Johnstown about
10.15 in the morning. We arrived there safely, and were told to follow
the first section. When we arrived at Conemaugh the first section and
the mail were there. Washouts further up the mountain prevented our
going, so we could do nothing but sit around and discuss the situation.
The creek at Conemaugh was swollen high, almost overflowing. The heavens
were pouring rain, but this did not prevent nearly all the inhabitants
of the town from gathering along its banks. They watched
The Waters Go Dashing
by and wondered whether the creek could get much higher. But a few
inches more and it would overflow its banks. There seemed to be a
feeling of uneasiness among the people. They seemed to fear that
something awful was going to happen. Their suspicions were strengthened
by the fact that warning had come down the valley for the people to be
on the lookout. The rains had swelled everything to the bursting point.
The day passed slowly, however.
"Noon came and went, and still nothing happened. We could not proceed,
nor could we go back, as the tracks about a mile below Conemaugh had
been washed away, so there was nothing for us to do but to wait and see
what would come next.
"Some time after 3 o'clock Friday afternoon I went into the train
despatcher's office to learn the latest news. I had not been there long
when I heard a fierce whistling from an engine away up the mountain.
Rushing out I found dozens of men standing around. Fear had blanched
every cheek. The loud and continued whistling had made every one feel
that something serious was going to happen. In a few moments I could
hear a train rattling down the mountain. About five hundred yards above
Conemaugh the tracks make a slight curve and we could not see beyond
this. The suspense was something awful. We did not know what was coming,
but no one could get rid of the thought that something was wrong at the
dam.
"Our suspense was not very long, however. Nearer and nearer the train
came, the thundering sound still accompanying it. There seemed to be
something behind the train, as there was a dull, rumbling sound which I
knew did not come from the train. Nearer and nearer it came; a moment
more and it would reach the curve. The next instant there burst upon our
eyes a sight that made every heart stand still. Rushing around the
curve, snorting and tearing, came an engine and several gravel cars. The
train appeared to be putting forth every effort to go faster. Nearer it
came, belching forth smoke and whistling long and loud. But
The Most Terrible Sight
was to follow. Twenty feet behind came surging along a mad rush of water
fully fifty feet high. Like the train, it seemed to be putting forth
every effort to push along faster. Such an awful race we never before
witnessed. For an instant the people seemed paralyzed with horror. They
knew not what to do, but in a moment they realized that a second's delay
meant death to them. With one accord they rushed to the high lands a few
hundred feet away. Most of them succeeded in reaching that place and
were safe.
[Illustration: AN ENGINEER'S TERRIFIC RACE IN THE VALLEY OF DEATH.]
"I thought of the passengers in my train. The second section of No. 8
had three sleepers. In these three cars were about thirty people, who
rushed through the train crying to the others 'Save yourselves!' Then
came a scene of the wildest confusion. Ladies and children shrieked and
the men seemed terror-stricken. I succeeded in helping some ladies and
children off the train and up to the highlands. Running back, I caught
up two children and ran for my life to a higher place. Thank God, I was
quicker than the flood! I deposited my load in safety on the high land
just as it swept past us.
"For nearly an hour we stood watching the mad flood go rushing by. The
water was full of debris. When the flood caught Conemaugh it dashed
against the little town with a mighty crash. The water did not lift the
houses up and carry them off, but crushed them one against the other and
broke them up like so many egg shells. Before the flood came there was a
pretty little town. When the waters passed on there was nothing but
Few Broken Boards
to mark the central portion of the city. It was swept as clean as a
newly brushed floor. When the flood passed onward down the valley I went
over to my train. It had been moved back about twenty yards, but it was
not damaged. About fifty persons had remained in the train and they were
safe. Of the three trains ours was the luckiest. The engines of both the
others had been swept off the track and one or two cars in each train
had met the same fate.
"What saved our train was the fact that just at the curve which I
mentioned the valley spread out. The valley is six or seven hundred
yards broad where our train was standing. This, of course, let the
floods pass out. It was only twenty feet high when it struck our train,
which was about in the middle of the valley.
"This fact, together with the elevation of the track, was all that saved
us. We stayed that night in the houses in Conemaugh that had not been
destroyed. The next morning I started down the valley and by 4 o'clock
in the afternoon had reached Conemaugh furnace, eight miles west of
Johnstown. Then I got a team and came home.
"In my tramp down the valley I saw some awful sights. On the tree
branches hung shreds of clothing torn from the unfortunates as they were
whirled along in the terrible rush of the torrent. Dead bodies were
lying by scores along the banks of the creeks. One woman I helped drag
from the mud had tightly clutched in her hand a paper. We tore it out of
her hand and found it to be a badly water-soaked photograph. It was
probably a picture of the drowned woman."
Over the Bridge.
Frank McDonald, a railroad conductor, says: "I certainly think I saw
1,000 bodies go over the bridge. The first house that came down struck
the bridge and at once took fire, and as fast as they came down they
were consumed. I believe I am safe in saying I saw 1,000 bodies burn. It
reminded me of a lot of flies on fly-paper struggling to get away, with
no hope and no chance to save them. I have no idea that had the bridge
been blown up the loss of life would have been any less. They would
have floated a little further with the same certain death. Then, again,
it was impossible for any one to have reached the bridge in order to
blow it up, for the waters came so fast that no one could have done it.
I saw fifteen to eighteen bodies go over the bridge. At the same time I
offered a man twenty dollars to row me across the river, but could get
no one to go, and I finally had to build a boat and get across that
way."
Nothing seems to have withstood the merciless sweep of the mighty
on-rush of pent-up Conemaugh. As for the houses of the town a thousand
of them lie piled up in a smouldering mass to the right of Conemaugh
bridge.
At the present moment, away down in its terrible depths, this mass of
torn and twisted timbers and dead humanity is slowly burning, and the
light curling smoke that rises as high almost as the mountain, and the
sickening smell that comes from the centre of this fearful funeral pile
tell that the unseen fire is feeding on other fuel than the rafters and
roofs that once sheltered the population of Johnstown.
A Ghastly Scene.
The mind is filled with horror at the supreme desolation that pervades
the whole scene. It is small wonder that the pen cannot in the hands of
the most skillful even pretend to convey one-hundredth part of what is
seen and heard every hour in the day in this fearful place. At the
present moment firemen and others are out on that ghastly aggregation of
woodwork and human kind jammed against the unyielding mass of arched
masonry.
Round them curls the white smoke from the smouldering interior of the
heaped up houses of Johnstown. Every now and then the gleam of an axe
and a group of stooping forms tell that another ghastly find has been
made, and a whisper goes round among the hundreds of watchers that other
bodies are being brought to light.
How many hundreds or thousands there are who found death by fire at this
awful spot will never be known, and the people are already giving up
hopes of ever reaching the knowledge of how their loved and lost ones
met their doom, whether in the fierce, angry embrace of the waters of
Conemaugh, or in the deadly grip of the fire fiend, who claimed the
homes of Johnstown for his own above the fatal bridge.
Every hour it becomes more and more apparent that the exact number of
lives lost will never be known. Up to the present time the disposition
has been to under rather than overestimate the number of lives
sacrificed.
A Mother Rescued by Her Daughter.
A daughter of John Duncan, superintendent of the Johnstown Street Car
Company, had an awful struggle in rescuing her mother and baby sister.
Mrs. Duncan and family had taken refuge on a roof, when a large log came
floating down the river, striking the house with immense force, knocking
Mrs. Duncan and daughter into the fast running river. Seeing what had
happened, Alvania, her fifteen-year-old daughter, leaped into the water,
and after a hard struggle landed both on the roof of the house.
The members of the Cambria Club tell of their battle for life in the
following manner: They were about to sit down to dinner when they heard
the crash, and knowing what had occurred they started for the attic just
as the flood was upon them. When the members were assured of their
safety they at once commenced saving others by grasping them as they
floated by on tree tops, houses, etc. In this manner they saved seventy
persons from death.
The Clock Stopped at 5.20.
One of the queerest sights in the centre of the town is a three-story
brick residence standing with one wall, the others having disappeared
completely, leaving the floors supported by the partitions. In one of
the upper rooms can be seen a mantel with a lambrequin on it and a clock
stopped at twenty minutes after five. In front of the clock is a lady's
fan, though from the marks on the wall-paper the water has been over all
these things.
In the upper part of the town, where the back water from the flood went
into the valley with diminished force, there are many strange scenes.
There the houses were toppled over one after another in a row, and left
where they lay. One of them was turned completely over and stands with
its roof on the foundations of another house and its base in the air.
The owner came back, and getting into his house through the windows
walked about on his ceiling. Out of this house a woman and her two
children escaped safely and were but little hurt, although they were
stood on their heads in the whirl. Every house has its own story. From
one a woman shut up in her garret escaped by chopping a hole in the
roof. From another a Hungarian named Grevins leaped to the shore as it
went whirling past and fell twenty-five feet upon a pile of metal and
escaped with a broken leg. Another is said to have come all the way from
very near the start of the flood and to have circled around with the
back water and finally landed on the flats at the city site, where it is
still pointed out.