THE JOHNSTOWN FLOODS.

Auckland Star, Volume XX, Issue 173, 23 July 1889, Page 2

THE JOHNSTOWN FLOODS.

AN APPALLING CALAMITY.

FLOOD AND FIRE

TEN THOUSAND REPORTED LOST.

SCENE OF THE DISASTER,

Two hundred and sixty-eight miles from Philadelphia and in a corner of Cambria county where the gorges on the western slopes of the Alleghanies contract to very narrow limits, the trains of the Pennsylvania Railroad pass alon» the valley of the Conemaugh River through a section only rivalledfor picturesque grandeur by thecanvons of Utah and Colorado. The merciless felling and burning of timber on the Alleghanies has greatly altered the topography of the entire country between Pittsburg and the border line ot Maryland and West Virginia. Floods of a destructive character are constantly recurring in the late months of spring, due to the abrupt precipitation of large quantities of moisture, which were formerly steadily • removed by the foliage of the mountain forests Every stream which has its source ih the Alleghanies tells the same story today and the numerous dams and other obstacles placed in thelbeds of the streams for commercial purposes have contributed largely to the disasters recorded within the past five decades. AWFUL LOSS OF LIFE. The exact number of people who perished In the great flood will probably never be known, bnt there are many persons who now place the figures at not less than 12,000. Millions cannot repair the damage, and the desolation covers miles of territory. The number of bodies thus far recovered is about 2,000. How many lie beneath the great bed of fire underswept by raging torrents, the uncovering of their bodies can alone determine, but from all appearances there are thousands. The agonising cries and lamentations of friends who have nofc been able fco learn any tidinga of their loved ones are most pathetic. When a form is seen to drop down deepgr into the flames from the burning away of supports, shrieks pierce the air. The condition of the streets is one of unparalleled desolation. Fine thoroughfares in the most densely populated parts of town are denuded of shops which once were the pride of their inhabitants. Trees have beew denuded of their branches, their trunks standing bare and broken, or are uprooted and swept away. It is not an exaggeration to say thafc not a single structure is now left within the confines of tho city that is safe as a place of habitation, and all must be torn down and rebuilt.

A TERRIBLE RESPONSIBILITY. William Henry Smith, the manager of the Associated Press, who was a passenger in the train which narrowly escaped destruction by the flood, gives a graphic picture of the way the flood came. He declares tbat the reservoir, the bursting of which caused such great loss of life and property, was maintained by a fishing club that waa forced to give a bond of $3,000,000 for its safety. He declares that the criminal responsibility for the awful calamity is brought home directly to this club.

AFTER THE CALAMITY,

A sad and gloomy sky, almost as sad and /jloomy as the human faces under it, Shrouded Johnstown to-day (June 3). Rain Jell all day and added to the miseries of the wretched people. The great plain, Where the best part of Johnstown used to stand, is half covered with water. The few sidewalks in the part that escaped the flood were inches thick with black, sticky mud, through which tramped a steady procession of poor women, who are left utterly destitute. The tents where the people are housed who cannot find other shelter were cold and cheerless. The town seemed like a great tomb. The people of Johnstown go about in a sort of daze, and are only half conscious of their grief. Every hour, as one goes through the streets, he hears neighbours greeting each other, and then inquiring, without a show of feeling, how many each had lost in his family. To-day I heard a grey-haired man hail another across the street with this question. "I lost five. All are gone but Mary and I," was the reply. " I am worse off than that," said the first old gentleman. "1 have only my grandson left. Seven of us are gone." • And so they passed on without apparent excitement. They and everyone else had heard so much of these melancholy conversations that somehow the calamity had lost its significance. They treat ib exactly as if the dead persons had gone away and were coming back in a week. SICKENING AND DISGRACEFUL SIGHTS. The effect of the dreadful things they saw and heard was to drive most of them to drink. By noon the streets were beginning to be full of boisterous and noisy countrymen, who were trying to counteract the strain upon their nerves with unnatural excitement. Then half of the police, foreseeing unseemly sights that were likely to disgrace the streets, drove out and kept out all visitors who had not some good reason for their presence. After that and far into the evening all the. country roads were filled with drunken stragglers who were trying to forget what they had seen. One thing that makes the work of searching for the bodies very slow is the strange way that great masses of objects were rolled into

INTRICATE MASSES OF RUBBISH. As the flood came down the valley of the South Fork it obliterated the suburb of Woodvale, where not a house was left nor a trail of one. The material they had contained rolled on down the valley, over and oyer, grinding it up to pulp and finally leaving ib against an unusually firm foundation. Every one of these masses contains human bodies, but it is slow work to pick them to pieces. Inside of one of them today I saw the remnants of a carriage, the body of a harnessed horse, a baby cradle and a doll, a tress of a woman's hair, a rocking-horse and a piece of beefsteak still hangingto a hook. The city is now very much better patrolled than it has been at any timesincetheflood occurred. Many members of the police forceof Pittsburgcame inand offered their services. One of them showed his spirit by striking a man, whom he saw opening a trunk among the rubbish, a tremendous blow over the head which knocked him senseless. Several big trunks and safes lie in full sight on the desolate plain in the lower part of the town, but no one dared to touch them after thab. A man named Dougherty tells a thrilling story of a ride down the river on a log. When the water struck the roof of the houses on which he had taken shelter, he jumped astride a telegraph pole, riding a distance of some 23 milse, from Johnstown to Bolivar, before he was rescued.

MADE INSANE BY HIS LOSS. A man named Christ. Myers has been rendered completely insane by the fact that his mother, father, two sisters and brother are among the missing. When notified of the loss of the family ho threw up his hands and exclaimed : "My God ! what will come next ?" From that time, which was last night, until the present, he has been hopelessly insane, even at times becjoming violent and wanting to kill himself.

AWFUL SIGHTS IN THE STREETS. This morning the peculiar stench of decaying human flesh was plainly perceptible to the senses as one ascended the ba.nk of Stony Creek for half a mile among the smouldering ruins of the wreck, and the mosb sceptical now conceive the worst, and realise that perhaps thousands of bodies lie, charred and blackened, beneath the great funeral pyre. From the banks many charred remains of the victims of the flame and flood aro plainly visible as the receding waters reluctantly give up their dead. Beneath almost every log or blackened beam the glistening skull or blanched remnants of ribs or limbs mark all that remain of life's hopes and dreams. NARROWLY ESCAPED WITH HIS LIFE. A milkman who was overcharging for milk this morning narrowly escaped lynching. Infuriated men appropriated all his milk and distributed ib among the poor and then drove him out of town. The body of the Hungarian who was lynched in the orchard last night has been recovered by his friends. The inhuman monster was nobiced as he cut off four fingers of a woman's hand. He dropped the fingers into his pocket, where they were found when he was captured. The act maddened the men, and they took him to the orchard on the hillside and haDged him. There is but one street left; in the town. About 155 houses are standing, where once there stood a thousand.

Below the mills is Cambria, a subborough, in which district resided probably 2,000 people. The scenes are but a repetition of other parts of the flood-wasted city. In Sfc. Columbus Church, a new structure, which has been flooded to a depth of six feet in the auditorium, the water had receded, and the floor was covered with slimy ooze to the depth of seven or eight inches. On boards stretched along the top of the pews were thirty bodies which had been snatched from the stream by Father Thos. Darlin and some of his parishioners, whom he had impressed into the service. While in the awful presence of the dead the Associated Press representative saw Joseph Smith, a man of extraordinary size and strength, enter. He said nofc a word, bufc quietly wenb from corpse to corpse, lifting the stained and mud-covered coverings of the dead. At last he came to the corpse of a child about 9 years old—his daughter. Ho looked at the swollen and bloodstained features a moment, and then with a voice of agony cried,

"MY MAGGIE, MY LITTLE

MAGGIE !"

at the same time pressing the inanimate form to his bosom and giving expression to alternate caressings and ejaculations of grief. The man took his child and went with it to what had been his home. He placed it beside those of his wife aud two other children,.all of whom had been drowned. It is impossible to narrate the many pathetic incidents that occurred on all sides. At Morrell forty-three bodies were laid oub waiting to be identified. Eight of them were children, one that of a child which a physician said had been born whilo the mother was fighting for her life in the raging flood.

At Nineveh, nine miles down the stream, 106 bodies, mostly women and children, were laid out in a sawmill, and additions were being made by waggon loads at a time, which were being picked up on the meadows, over which the great tide had surged. Many were found with their hands clinging tenaciously to branches of trees and shrubs. In one case a young couple were found locked in each other's arms. In another case a mother was found with a child r .nsped in each arm and held closely to her bosom. There is no possibility of telling just who have been lost, as thousands are missing. The survivors, many of whom tell of most thrilling escapes from the collections of debris, house "roofs, car doors and planks, seek the banks and gaze with stupor upon the terrible scene.

The number of people who are visible from the banks is so few in contrast with the population of the various little boroughs which constitute the ciby that the questoin " Where are the people?' is asked on all sides.

Tbe impression is gaining that the disclosures yet to come, where the gorge collected, is yet more ghastly. The awfulness of the scene defies language to depict, as it does the imagination to conceive of. Without seeing the havoc created no idea can be given either of the area of desolation or the extent ol damage.

A NOBLE FATHER

At Bolivar a man, woman and child wero seen floating down on a lob of drift. The mass of debris commenced to part, and by desperate efforts the husband and father succeeded in getting his wife and little one on a floating tree. Just then the tree washed under the biidge, and the rope was thrown out. It fell over the man's shoulders. He saw at a glance that he could not save his dear ones, so he threw the means of safety to one side, and grasped closer in his arms those who were with'him. A moment later the tree struck a floating house. Ib turned over, and in a second the three persons were in the seething waters, being carried to their deaths. Another instance is thab of a mothers love told at Belware. A woman and two children were floating down the stream. The mother caught a rope and tried to hod it and her babe. It was impossible, and, with a look of anguish, she relinquished her hold and sank with her two little ones clasped in tbe grasp that soon proved one of death.

A PITIFUL TALE.

Just before reaching Sang Hollow, the end of the main line of the Pennslyvania railroad, is a signal tower, and the men in it told piteous stories of what they saw. A beautiful girl came down on the roof of a building, which was swung in near the tower. She screamed to the operators to save her, and one brave fellow walked as far into the river as he could, and shouted to her to guide herself in to the shore with a bit of plank. She was a plucky girl, and stood up on her frail support in evident obedience to the command of the operator. She made two or three bold strokes and actually stopped the course of the raft for an instant, then it swerved and went out from under her. She tried to ewim ashore, but in a few seconds she was lost in the swirling waters. Something hit her, for she lay quietly on her back, with he_ face pallid and expiessionless.

STRUGGLING FOR LIFE.

There were men and women in dozens, in pairs and singly; children, boys, big and little, and wee babes were therein among the awful confusion, drowning, gasping, struggling and fighting desperately for life. Two men on a tiny raft shot along in the swiftest part of the current. They crouched stolidly looking at the shores, while between them, dressed in white and kneeling, with her face turned heavenward, was a girl 6 or 7 years old. When she came opposite the tower she turned her face to the operators. She was so close that they could see the big tears on her cheeks, and* her pallor was as death. The helpless men an shore shouted to her to keep up her courage, and she resumed her devout attitude and disappeared under the trees to a projecting point a short distance below. " We could not see her come out again," said the operator, " and that was all of it." "Do you see that fringe of tree? said an operator, pointing to the place where the little girl had gone out of sight.

"Well, we saw scores of children swept in there. I believe that when fche time comes they will find almost a hundred bodies of children in there among those bushes."

IMPROVISED MORGUES

There are six improvised morgues in Johnstown, and in these bodies are held until decomposition renders it unsafe to keep them longer. These temporary places for the dead are in churches and schoolhouses, the largest one being the Fourth Ward schoolhouse, where planks have been laid over the tops of the desks, and on them the remains are placed. When a corpse is dug from the bank ib is covered with mud; it is taken to an ante-room of the school,- where it is placed under a hydrant, and the muck and slime washed off. With a knife the clothes are ripped open, and an attendant searches the pockets for valuables or papers that would lead to identification. Four men lift the corpse on to a rudo table, and thero ib is thoroughly washed and embalming fluid injected into an arm. Then, with other bodies, the corpse lies in a larger room until identified or until it becomes offensive. In the latter case ifc is hurried to a large grave thafc will hereafter have a monument over it bearing fche inscription, , "UNKNOWN DEAD." The number of the latter is growing hourly. Bodies of stalwart workmen lie beside the remains of dainty ladies, many of whom are still decked with costly earrings and jewels on their fingers. Rich and poor throng these quarters in the hope of recognising a missing one, so as to accord the body decent burial. "Mamma, mamma," cried a child. She had recognised a body thab no one else could, and in a moment the corpse was ticketed, boxed and delivered to labourers, who bore it away to join the long funeral procession. A mother recognised her baby boy. "KEEP IT A FEW MINUTES," she asked the undertaker in charge. In a few minutes she returned carrying in her arms a little white casket. Then she hired two men to bear it to the cemetery. No hearses are seen in Johnstown. Relatives recognise their dtad, secure coffins, get them carried the best way they can to the morgues, then to graveyards. A prayer, some tears, and a few more of the dead thousands are buried. A frequent visitor to these horrible places is David John Lewis. All ovei Johnstown he rides a powerful grey horse and to each one he meets whom he knows, he oxclaims, ' Have you seen my sisters ?' Hardly waiting for a reply he gallops away, .either to seek ingress to the morgue or to ride along the river bank. One week ago Lewis was worth §60,000 dollars, his all being invested in a large commission business. To-day he owns the horse he rides, the clothes on his back, and that is all. In the fierce wave were buried five of his near relatives — his sisters Anna, Lizzie and Maggie. The latter was married and her little boy and babe were also drowned.

LIFE INSURANCE LOSSES,

A representative of the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York stated today that the Company would lose $420,000 by deaths in the Conemaugh valley.

Some of the unfortunates who could not go to the relief- trains endeavoured to obtain flour from the wrecked stores in Johnstown. One dealer was charging $5 a sack for flour. Suddenly a crowd heard of the occurrence, and several desperate men went to the store and doled out flour gratuitously to the homeless and stricken army. Another dealer was selling flour ab §1.50 a sack. He refused to give any away, guarding his store with a shotgun. Hundreds of men, women, and children went floating down the current to meet their death. Mothers calmly sacrificed themselves to the fury of the flood or tire to save the lives of their children and loved ones.

Not infrequently a pale-faced woman, clinging with her child to the floating debris, realising that the support was too frail for two, would be seen to lift her precious freight high up on tho floating debris, and, with a hasty kiss, sink beneath the waves.