The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado. Logan Marshall
refuge in the upper stories of buildings were in danger, determined at six o'clock to reach Dayton with troops and assistance.
THE CITY THREATENED
It was impossible to get within two miles of the fire, and from that distance it appeared that explosions, probably of drugs, made the fire seem of larger proportions than it was. It appeared to have about burned itself out, and it was not believed it would spread to other blocks.
It was impossible to ascertain, even approximately, the number of persons who might have been marooned in this section and who died after being trapped by flood and fire.
The flames at night cast a red weird glow over the flood-stricken city that added to the fears of thousands of refugees and marooned persons, and led to apprehension that there might have been many of the water's prisoners in the burned buildings.
Fire started anew at nine o'clock at night and burned fiercely.
The men, women and children marooned in the Beckel Hotel were terror stricken when fire threatened the building for the second time at night. Since Tuesday morning two hundred and fifty persons had been in the place.
Crowded in the upper stories of tall office buildings and residences in Dayton, two miles each way from the center of the town, were hundreds of persons whom it was impossible to approach. Hundreds of fires which it was impossible to fight were burning. The rescue boats were unable to get farther from the shore than the throw line would permit. They could not live in the current.
At midnight residents of Dayton watching the course of the flames from across the wide stretch of flood waters believed the fire got its new start in the afternoon in the store of the Patterson Tool and Supply Company, on Third Street, just east of Jefferson, whence it ate its way west, apparently aided by escaping gas and exploding chemicals in two wholesale drug establishments.
Throughout the night fires lighted the sky and illuminated the rushing waters. Fifty thousand people were jammed in the upper floors of their homes, with no gas, no drinking water, no light, no heat, no food.
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. The flood at Watervliet, New York, showing buildings torn from their foundations and floating down the stream. Great damage and untold suffering resulted
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Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. Rescuer leaving one of the houses in the flooded district and removing a family to safety
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THE CREST OF THE FLOOD
The crest of the Dayton flood passed about midnight, but the next few hours allowed no appreciable lowering in the water. Wednesday morning brought little hope of immediate relief to those who spent the night in horror, however, and it was feared that the number of drowned had been greatly increased during the twelve hours of darkness.
Cloudy skies and a cold drizzling rain added to the dismal aspect of the city in the morning. The temperature fell steadily all night, and when daylight came the thermometers showed that it was only three degrees above freezing. The condition was welcomed, because it was expected that a hard freeze would aid materially in holding back the innumerable tributaries of the flooded streams and assist the earth in retaining the moisture that had been soaked into it steadily for the last five days.
By ten-thirty the water depth had lessened about two feet. All stores and factories in the main part of the town were flooded to a depth of from eight to ten feet. Numerous residences and smaller buildings collapsed, but any estimate of the property loss was impossible.
A morgue was established on the west side of the city, and efforts to recover the bodies and aid the suffering were pushed as rapidly as conditions permitted. Relief trains began to arrive in the stricken towns.
Adjutant-General Speaks, with a small detachment of troops and a squad of linemen and operators, left Columbus early Wednesday in an effort to reach Dayton. The attempt was made by means of motor boats and automobiles in the hope to establish adequate telegraph or telephone communication with Dayton.
MARTIAL LAW ESTABLISHED
A message from Governor Cox ordered the entire Ohio National Guard to hold itself in readiness to proceed to Dayton as soon as it was possible to enter the city.
"I understand the importance of having the militia there," he telegraphed.
Soon afterward notice was posted in headquarters of the emergency committee announcing that the city was under martial law, and several companies of soldiers arrived from neighboring Ohio cities.
The soldiers were employed to patrol edges of the burned district, and prevent looting of homes freed from the floods.
The hundreds of refugees in the Y. M. C. A. building and in the Algonquin Hotel were facing possible short rations. Their food supplies were becoming limited and drinking water was at a premium.
Forty boats were requisitioned by the city authorities and were patroling the city in an effort to save life and property. These craft were manned by volunteers.
In front of the Central Union Telegraph office the water was still running so swiftly that horses could not go through it without swimming. One boat went by with two men in it, rowing desperately, trying to keep the bow to the waves. The boat overturned, but both men escaped drowning by swimming to a lamp post. They clung to the post for half an hour before a rope could be thrown to them. After repeated casts the line fell near enough to them to be caught, and the men were drawn into the second story window of the building.
The telephone employees in the building fished chairs, dry goods boxes and a quantity of other floating property from the flood. The debris swept down the main business street with such force that every plate glass window was smashed.
Only one sizable building had collapsed up to noon so far as the watchers in the telephone office could learn. This structure, an old one, was a three-story affair, near Ludlow Street, occupied by a harness manufacturing concern.
70,000 IMPRISONED BY THE WATER
More than 70,000 persons either were unable to reach their homes or, held in their waterlocked houses, were unable to reach land.
While those marooned in the offices and hotels were in no immediate danger of drowning there was no way food or drinking water could reach them until the flood receded. Those in the residences, however, were in constant danger both by flood and fire. First the frailer buildings were swept into the stream, many showing the faces of women and children peering from the windows. These were followed by more substantial brick buildings, until it became evident that no house in the flood zone was safe.
The houses as a rule lasted but a few blocks before disintegrating.
Incidents without number were narrated of persons in the flooded districts waving handkerchiefs and otherwise signaling for aid, being swept away before the eyes of the watchers on the margin of the waters. Many of the rescue boats were swept by the current against what had been fire plugs, trees and houses. They were crushed. Canoes and rowboats shared the same fate. What life existed in the district which the water covered was in constant danger and helpless until the flood subsided.
Bodies were found as far out as Wayne Avenue, which is more than a mile from the river. At Fifth and Brown Streets the water reached a height of ten feet. At least one of those drowned met death in the Algonquin Hotel.
The rumor that the St. Elizabeth Hospital with 600 patients had been swept away, which gained circulation Tuesday night, proved to have been false.
Although