Читать книгу The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado - Logan Marshall - Страница 12

Table of Contents

PITIABLE CONDITION OF MAROONED—FALSE REPORT CAUSES PANIC—THE FLOOD RECEDES—A SURVEY OF THE FLOOD'S DAMAGE—MARTIAL LAW ENFORCED—RESTORING SANITATION—FEEDING THE HOMELESS—PATTERSON CONTINUES NOBLE WORK—STORIES OF SURVIVORS.

When Thursday morning dawned on stricken Dayton the food situation which had threatened to become serious was relieved temporarily by the arrival of a special train from Richmond, Indiana, bringing seven cars of provisions. Quartermaster Logan also received word from the United States Army quartermaster general that 300,000 rations had been ordered shipped from Chicago, 100 ranges and one complete quartermaster depot from Columbus, 3,300 tents, 100 hospitals tents and 400 stoves from Philadelphia, and 300,000 blankets and 500 bedsacks from St. Louis or Cincinnati. Quartermaster Logan was authorized to purchase in open market all rations needed.

MAP SHOWING THE RIVERS AND CREEKS WHICH RUN THROUGH DAYTON, AND THE PRINCIPAL SECTIONS OF THE CITY

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Showing the difficulties experienced by the rescuers in getting to the hundreds of people whose lives were imperiled by being caught in the flooded buildings

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Copyright by George Grantham Bain. Mayor of Cleveland getting motor boats ready for relief work in Northern Ohio. For days after the flood reached its height, even strong boats could reach many of the marooned people only with great difficulty and risk

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The thing that made the situation most difficult for concerted rescue work was the peculiar geographical situation of the town. It is divided into six sections: central Dayton, comprising the down-town business district; West Dayton, the territory extending several miles west of the big Miami; Riverdale, the northeast, across the river from the central district; Dayton View, the extreme northeast; Southern Dayton, the manufacturing district in which the National Cash Register Company's plant is located and separated from the central district by lowlands which were deep in flood water, and North Dayton, northwest of the business district, across the river from the business section.

PITIABLE CONDITION OF MAROONED

The river forms a horseshoe around the business district, making it impossible to reach that part until the torrents that poured down the valley should recede.

Dayton View, West Dayton and Riverdale were the only sections between which communication was possible.

The suburb of Riverdale up to Helena Street was penetrated by the down-town relief commission and conditions found much similar to those in the southern suburbs. Everyone was crowded to the second floors or roofs of their homes, but few of the more stable dwellings were washed away.

North of Burns Avenue as far as Fourth Street the water was found to be from three to six feet deep. Beyond Fourth Street the water had receded to make it possible in many places to proceed on foot.

Nothing was known of the foreign settlement in North Dayton close to the Miami River. It was this part of the city where the flood first made its way and where the occupants of the houses had ignored warnings to leave. It was here also that it was feared most of the deaths would occur. The only body found on Thursday was that of Charles Parker, a livery man, discovered in the court house yard.

Captain of Police H. E. Lackhart declared that water in North Dayton, Miami City and East Dayton reached the housetops. His estimate of the number of dead in that district was three hundred.

The bodies of a woman and a baby were seen floating down Jefferson Street, one of Dayton's main thoroughfares. It was thought that they came from the district north of the river.

A report which had been current in the water district south of Main Street that Brigadier-General Wood had been fatally injured by falling plate glass, proved to be untrue. He continued in full charge of the relief work, although his arm had been badly cut.

Parts of Main Street were impassable because of debris. At several points it comprised outbuildings that had struck more stable buildings and been dashed to pieces.

Hourly apprehension for the appalling sights to be uncovered when the waters return to normal was growing.

PLANS FOR FIGHTING PESTILENCE

Pestilence was feared and sanitary and health officials mapped out their work. Sewers were burst by the flood, manholes were simply blown from the earth, and it was realized that many days must elapse before the water service could be restored and before street car companies could operate.

Because of the lack of electric lights, and as a precaution against looting, military notices were posted, forbidding citizens to be on the streets between the hours of 6 P. M. and 5 A. M.

Word was received that a number of motor boats with men to operate them were on the way from Cleveland and Cincinnati.

The water receded rapidly during the day. An occasional snow flurry and biting gusts of wind added to the discomfort of the rescue crews, but they remained steadily at work.

The Emergency Committee began publication of an official newspaper from the plant of the National Cash Register Company. It was a one-sheet poster designed for free circulation in all accessible parts of the city. Its leading article warned the people to beware of thieves and burglars.

A thief was caught robbing homes of flood victims who had been taken to refuge stations. He was shot to death by state guardsmen.

The progress of the first canoe into the water-bound district was greeted by appeals for bread and water. In nearly every house left standing wistful faces were to be seen pressed against window panes. All of these were asked whether there had been any deaths and with only a few exceptions all replied that there had not.

Temporary morgues were established in the United Brethren Church and also at Fifth and Eagle Streets. At these points many bodies were cared for, chiefly those of women and children.

FALSE REPORT CAUSES PANIC

Needless suffering was caused during the day by an announcement of the breaking of the Lewistown reservoir. Men rushed through the uptown streets shouting:

"Run for your lives! The reservoir has broken!"

There was really no danger. The reservoir contained 17,000 acres of water space, but it was pointed out that the flood extended over several million acres and the worst possible effect of the breaking of the reservoir would be to retard the rescues and could not cause a rise of more than a foot. The waters at the time were seven feet lower than the high water of Tuesday night.

The alarm was spread by a policeman who was posted on the edge of the flood district. Others were quick to take up the cry.

Soon thousands of men and women crowded the streets. Many of them fled for the hills, but hundreds hurled themselves past guards and into the main office building of the National Cash Register Building, which was already crowded.

Not until John H. Patterson, president of the company, had addressed the throng was any semblance of order restored.

Mr. Patterson was appointed military aide in the southeast district of the city, with full control under martial law. He at once ordered every available motor car and truck to scour the farmhouses south of the city and confiscate all available food supplies.

Colonel H. G. Catrow arrived with his military aides from Columbus in the afternoon and took charge of the militiamen.

SIGHTSEERS BARRED FROM CITY

Sightseers of Springfield who sought to visit Dayton received a rude shock. On the first train to the stricken city from Springfield were fifty linemen and three coaches full of people on a sightseeing tour.

The Governor learned of this and on his orders when the train reached Dayton two soldiers were stationed at each car door and none but linemen were permitted to alight. The train was then run back to Springfield with its disappointed passengers.

The Governor then ordered guardsmen at Springfield to let none board trains for Dayton who did not have a military pass. The purpose in this was to prevent idle visitors draining the limited food resources of Dayton.

DYNAMITE AND LIME SENT

Dynamite, gasoline and lime were sent from Springfield as supplies for the sanitary corps ordered there to prevent the spread of disease and a feared epidemic. The dynamite was needed to blow up dangerous obstructions, the gasoline to burn rubbish and the lime for disinfecting purposes.

Mutiny broke out in the city workhouse, where one hundred prisoners were confined. Terror-stricken by the flood and fire, the prisoners were demanding freedom.

They beat at their cell doors and shouted imprecations at their keepers. Superintendent Johnson applied to the militia for help. One workhouse prisoner was released because he knew how to run the water-works pumps.

The two hundred and fifty guests of the Algonquin Hotel were kept comfortable except for the continuous dread that the fire would spread to them. The water reached the second floor, but all the supplies had been moved to places of safety, and those in the hotel experienced little discomfort.

From Fourth Street to the Miami River, relief work was taken up by a committee headed by Chief of Police Allaback. All of the grocery stores were commandeered and, although in most cases the goods were covered with water, yet sufficient supplies were found to prevent great suffering among those in the interior dry strip.

SUFFERERS CHEERFUL

One of the remarkable features was the cheerful spirit with which flood victims viewed their plight. This was Dayton's first big flood in many years. Much of the submerged area had been considered safe, but as the majority of residents of these sections looked out on all sides upon a great sweep of muddy, swiftly moving water, they seemed undisturbed.

In some of the poorer sections the attitude of the marooned was not so cheerful. As a motor boat passed beneath the second floor at one partly submerged house, a man leaned out and threatened to shoot the boat's occupants unless they rescued his wife and a baby that had been born the day before. The woman, almost dying, was let from the window by a rope and taken to a place of refuge.

Further on, members of a motor boat party were startled by shots in the second floor of a house, about which five feet of water swirled. The boat was stopped and a man peered from a window.

"Why are you shooting?" he was asked.

"Oh, just amusing myself, shooting at rats that come upstairs. When are you going to take me out of here?" he replied.

Three babies were born in one church during the afternoon. One was born in a boat while its mother was being conveyed to safety. Such scenes were common.

WOMEN BECAME HYSTERICAL

At the rescue stations the scenes enacted were heartrending and the most pitiful were witnessed at the temporary morgues. At the West Dayton morgue frantic crowds all day and night watched every body brought in, hoping against hope it was not that of some loved one.

Women became hysterical at times when searching for missing members of their families whom they had failed to find at the relief stations.

With the coming of nightfall Thursday the efforts to rescue more persons were slackened, and all of Dayton not in the central flood districts waited in dread for the nightly fires which had added horrors to the already terrible situation.

The flood situation at night appeared brighter than in the morning. The water had fallen from three to five feet, the currents of the river and creek had slackened, and there was food enough left for the town's breakfast and dinner.

As Galveston and San Francisco pulled themselves together after calamity so Dayton began pulling itself together on Friday of the week of the flood. Emerging from the waters and privation, citizens began co-operating with those who rushed to the rescue from outside. Considerable progress was made toward the restoration of order and in giving relief to those in the worst distress.

Much cheer was taken from the fact that so far as loss of life was concerned it was not so great as had been feared, though no exact estimates were yet calculable.

Financially the citizens had a great burden to bear. Investigators on Friday put the figures of the losses at double that of the previous day, making it $50,000,000.

THE FLOOD RECEDES

The down-town district was practically free of water. Fire engines pumped out the basement of the Algonquin Hotel, that the Algonquin's artesian well supply might be pumped into the empty city water mains for fire protection.

Water was still from ten to fifteen feet deep in certain districts of the west side. A mile of residences on Linwood Avenue had been swept clear and nothing remained to indicate that the street had existed.

A SURVEY OF THE FLOOD'S DAMAGE

In a tour of the business sections it was found that the high stage of the flood had been nine feet at Third and Main Streets, the heart of the city.

The tower of Steele High School was levelled and the Leonard Building on Main Street was undermined so that it collapsed. Other buildings stood up.

The following buildings were found to have withstood the flood, furnishing shelter to about 7,000 people who were marooned in them since Tuesday: Conover Building, Kuhns Building, The Arcade, two Cappel Buildings, Callahan Bank Building, Schwind Building, Commercial Building, Mendenhall Building, Rike Kumler Building, Reibold Building, Elder & Johnson's building and United Brethren Publishing Company's building.

NO PUBLIC BUILDINGS GONE

None of the public buildings was destroyed. Among these buildings were the Dayton Club, Victoria, National and Colonial theatres, city hall, court house, Beckel, Phillips, Algonquin and Atlas hotels, Masonic temple, post office, Y. M. C. A. and various churches.

The Log Cabin, 115 years old, the first house built in Dayton, still stood, although it is on the south bank of the Miami, right in the path of the flood.

The electric light and gas plants were safe from the high water. The city's water comes from a reservoir high above the river.

In Dayton less than one hundred bodies had been recovered by Friday night, though thousands were missing. The fire was out, however, and the flood had so receded that relief boats were able to get to practically all parts of the city.

MOST HOUSES WRECKED

Every house in the flooded district was practically ruined. Streets were so clogged with wreckage that it was almost impossible to get through them.

"Strange to say, there was not much suffering in our particular neighborhood," declared George Armstrong, who had been marooned in the Capell furniture store building. "There was one woman with a three-weeks-old baby. We took excellent care of her. And did we pray? There never were such prayers in church. We had a case of whiskey and offered to send it off to persons who seemed exhausted. They refused to take it, although ordinarily they are not teetotallers."

BOATMEN TOUR DISTRICTS

Members of the United States life-saving crew of Louisville navigated sections of flooded Dayton heretofore unexplored, reporting conditions in North Dayton and Riverdale quite as deplorable as the first estimates concerning suffering were concerned.

Cruising the southern end of Riverdale, where it was feared there would be found a big death list, Captain Gillooly, in charge of the crew from the United States life saving station at Louisville, Ky., reported conditions paralleling those in other sections of the stricken city, but only two bodies were reported as having been recovered. The flooded territory in Riverdale, which is a section of substantial home owners, was approximately seventeen blocks long and seven blocks wide.

After having descended the Miami River, Captain Gillooly reported that in the south central section of Dayton, where the flood flowed wildest on Tuesday night and Wednesday, thousands of persons still were imprisoned in upper floors of their homes. He stated that from numerous inquiries among people whose residences had been inundated it appeared the life loss would not be nearly so large as it was placed by first reports.

This section still was flooded, although the water rapidly was receding, and while a few corpses eddied out from the flood's edge, yet in the center of the area it was stated that only two bodies had been seen.

DRINKING WATER DISTRIBUTED

Captain Gillooly and his men distributed food and quantities of drinking water to a large number of the flood's prisoners. Arrangements also were made to provide the needy ones with the necessary supplies from time to time until the flood waters receded.

At many different points along the route stops were made and the crew detoured away from the rivers. It was found that many of these detours could be made afoot, the water having rapidly fallen since the night. At no place was the water behind the levees deeper than four feet.

The Louisville men took relief to several hundred families in the low district in the vicinity of Ludlow and Franklin Streets. Here the water had reached the roofs of all two-story buildings. Only a few of the most desperate cases were brought out, the first move being to leave bread and water in as many places as possible.

Sixty Catholic sisters at the Academy of the Sisters of Notre Dame and eighteen persons for whom they had provided refuge were found to have been without food or water since Tuesday. There were several cases of illness, and the suffering had been intense. The life savers left bread and water and planned to take further help.

Meanwhile Capt. H. A. Hansen and the crew from Cleveland were operating several boats in North Dayton. There many of the poorer class live, and few of the buildings were substantial. Dozens of them were swept away, upturned and shattered.

Mayor Phillips was still marooned in his house, and G. B. Smith, president of the Chamber of Commerce, continued in active aid of relief operations.

The Fourth National Bank Building, which was reported several times to have been destroyed by fire, was found untouched by the flames, although a building immediately adjoining was burned. The newspaper offices, the News and Herald and Journal buildings, were safe, but none was issuing papers.

The Cleveland battalion of engineers were the first of a horde of troops which began to pour into Dayton in the morning. They were immediately put at work distilling the water. The fifteen men of the Dayton Ohio National Guard companies, who had been on duty since midnight Tuesday, frankly had been unable to cope with the situation. The police force was also depleted by the fact that many of its members had been marooned by high water. The looter had been in high glee.

MARTIAL LAW ENFORCED

Strict martial law was put into force. With headquarters at Bamberger Park, Col. Zimmerman of the Fifth Ohio Regiment organized the forces of protection, and by noon every accessible section was under strict guard. Frequent fights and skirmishes were held with the pillagers, who sought to steal under the cover of darkness. Orders to shoot to kill looters on the third shot were issued to the militiamen. The pillaging of abandoned homes and stores and the slugging and robbing of men and women in the streets after nightfall had reached a desperate stage when the troops arrived, and drastic orders were necessary.

"Shoot at the legs first, and then shoot to kill," was the way the soldiers were instructed to act.

Colonel Zimmerman listened to thousands who sought passes to go through the flood area to reach marooned friends and kinsmen. Only a few were allowed to go, and these were compelled to prove special causes. To those who asserted they had starving friends, Colonel Zimmerman rejoined that provisions and medicines constantly were going into the inundated district.

"Be satisfied you're not dead yet," was the Colonel's disposition of many of the applicants.

All during the night and until dawn revolver and rifle shots had sounded. Most of the shooting was in the bottoms near the river, but about midnight there was a lively volley of shots, evidently an exchange of bullets, believed to have been between soldiers and pillagers.

A robbery was thwarted when the police arrested a man who was escaping from the city with a satchel containing $50,000 in diamonds and jewelry which he had stolen from downtown jewelry shops.

"Beware of thieves and burglars," said an official bulletin given wide circulation. "Don't leave your houses without protection. It was thieves who scared you about the reservoir and natural gas explosion. The natural gas has been turned off and there is no danger of explosions."

REFUGEES IN FIGHTS

At three o'clock Friday morning it was unofficially announced that three pillagers had been shot to death in various parts of the city during the night.

Over in North Dayton, when the lowlands were inundated by the rush of the waters of the Mad River, the foreign population, which practically occupies that section, was driven to the upper floors and the housetops. With the extinguishing of the city's lights bedlam broke loose in various portions of North Dayton. Men in the frenzy of their trouble fell to desperate quarreling among themselves, and shots were heard at all hours of the day and night Wednesday and Thursday.

There were unconfirmed reports that more than a dozen murders had been committed. Troops were ordered into this district to stop the conflicts.

RESTORING SANITATION

Problems of sanitation, the water supply and the reconstruction of the wrecked sewer system were resumed by engineers. Citizens were ordered to dig cesspools in their yards and to get rid of all garbage. Members of the State Board of Health, bringing carloads of lime and other disinfectants, reached here to ward off disease.

A report was circulated that an epidemic of typhoid fever and pneumonia had developed in Riverdale and West Dayton. It was ascertained, however, that not a single well-developed case of either disease was known in the sections mentioned, although there was considerable sickness among the refugees, particularly women and children, due to privation.

Three deaths from diphtheria in other sections were reported by Secretary of Health Board Miller.

FEEDING THE HOMELESS

The food situation was much brighter. The trucks sent from the Cash Register Company, manned by men with military orders to confiscate potatoes and food from the farmers, brought back a good supply of vegetables and several relief trains reached the city.

The problem of providing for refugees was bravely faced by an army of workers, many of whom came from neighboring cities equipped with car loads and train loads of food.

"We can't tell how much we need," said John M. Patterson "and we don't know yet in just what shape we want some of the supplies. For instance, there came a carload of flour. We can use it later, but if that flour had been made into bread it would have been immediately available for the persons imprisoned in their homes whom it has been impossible to remove. We could take bread to them, but flour is not serviceable."

Many motor boats went into the flooded district taking food and water and bringing out persons who needed medical attention. Many of them were so weak from deprivation and suffering as to be scarcely able to move. Hundreds were taken to the Cash Register Hospital and other places where they could be aided.

Among those taken out of the Algonquin Hotel were Stephen Patterson and his wife. Mr. Patterson is a brother of John H. Patterson, the cash register manufacturer. Great anxiety had been felt for their safety and also for Mrs. Frank Patterson, a sister-in-law. The latter was found in her home on West Fifth Street.

HUNDREDS STAND BY HOMES

In that section on the east side of the Miami River and north of the Mad River rescue work went forward with the two United States life-saving crews in charge. Hundreds of people living in upper stories and practically without food or water since Tuesday morning refused to leave their homes, believing they would have a better chance for safety there than elsewhere. Water and food were supplied them. Hundreds of others had left their homes, in some instances effecting exits by chopping holes through the roofs. Very few of these were accounted for.