Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 March 1888 — NEW YORK’S BLIZZARD. [ARTICLE]

NEW YORK’S BLIZZARD.

Graphic Account of the Efiects of the Great Storm in the Metropolis. The Losses Occasioned by the SnowBlockade Estimated at Millions of Dollars. [special new tore CORRESPONDENCE.I The storm results in New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey since last Monday morning are somethin*; unprecedented. During that tune the New-Yorkers ha\e been aetompletely isolated from mankind, and, indeed, from each other, as though their nig city had been buried under an Alpine avalanche. People living from one to five miles from their places of business or employment have bad a compulsory vacation of nearly four days. Their horse cars ceased to run, their elevated roads were blocked and their sidewalks ana streets were clogged with nuge drifts of snow that rendered pedestrianism and the pasß&ge cf vehicles out of tne question. Funercl precessions were stalled, and the dead could not be buried. Railroad transportation into or out of the city did not exist, and telegraphic communication was destroyed on all sides.

A thousand cities and towns within a day’s ride, and containing twenty millions of people, were as badly off as New York. Nothing so stupendous in the way of storm damage has ever been known in America. Human ingenuity and inventiveness have been powerless in the presence of this wonderful demonstration of the elements. No appliances known in those parts have been equal to cleaning the streets and railway tracks, and restoring the efficiency of the vast system of telegraph wires. The damage in all directions is roughly estimated at twenty millions. It is probable that twioe that sum will not fnfly cover the loss to all tLe interests that have suffered in consequence of the big storm, and weeks must elapse bofore its ravages can be wholly repaired and its disturbances wholly removed. The city is just beginning to make some efforts to recovor from the efiects of the phenomenal blizzard. Coal is scarce. There is no milk at all, and all but a few of the telegraph and telephone wires are vet in a desperate tangle. Mountains of snow block all the principal streets and avenues. The elevated trains though again running are in diminished numbers and at a low rate of speed. As for the horse cars the tracks are buried under two feet of snow and cannot be Cleared out for several days. All business is at a standstill. Coming as it did without warning, the storm was a ter-, rible blow. It began with rain on Sunday, and about midnight turned to snow. On Monday morning the wind was blowing at the rate of fifty miles an hour, and screeching and howling around corners in a way which was terrifying. Snow had fallen to a depth of three feet. Huge drifts from six to ten feet high rapidly formed. The many employes of factories and stores started early, but horse-cars and omnibuses were .soon abandoned. The surface roads made herculean efforts to keep the tracks clear, and harnessed six and eight horses to each car to keep a-going. By 8 o’clock the surface roads were forced to abandon their cars. Then the rush for the elevated road began, but the trains were stalled by the icy tracks at Fourteenta street. After hours of delay the weary passengers were taken from trains by moans of long ladders from the street. Thousands walked through the biting blasts only to find their places of business closed. After 10 o’clock in the morning all efforts to run the elevated trains were abandoned. Fabulous prices were vainly offered for cabs, but livery men would not expose their animals. The telegraph, telephone, and electric wires fell in all directions, and by noon only two circuits of the Western UniOD were in operation. The cable on the Brooklyn bridge refused to work, and for hours no trains passed over. Finally, late at night, dummy engines started and ran two trains over the swaying structure. No pedestrians were allowed on the bridge. Ferry-boats on the North and East rivers managed to run, but with much difficulty and danger. The exchanges were closed at noon, as only a few brokets ventured downtown in the teeth of the gale. The banks were open, but with small clerical forces, and could do nothing, and, for tho first time in such a case, extended time on commercial paper. Brooklyn was no better off, and Jersey Citv was in a worse condition. Out in the bay sailing craft of all kinds fled before the storm. The steamship Alaska, of the Guion line, arrived Sunday night, but could not get up to her pier until Tuesday. Viewed in the afternoon, the city seemed a prey to the elements. The Bowery looked like a battle-field with its abandoned cars, trucks, and vehicles of all kinds. Broadway was a wreck. Vast mounds of snow in every conceivable shape zigzagged in the street. In front of the Grand Central Hotel a truck-load of lager beer had been abandoned. The snow blew against it until it was buried from sight As the day wore on, the blizzard shrieked harder and harder. When th? few business men down town tried to get home, not a conveyance of any kind could be found. Millionaires were worse off than laborers. Even so dignified a person as ex-Senator Roscoe Conkling had to walk. He started from his office on Wall street and, with his usual grit, struggled up through desolate Broadway. To use his own words : “It was dark and it was useless to try to pick out a path, so I went magnificently along, shouldering through drifts and headed for the north. I was pretty well exhausted when I got to Union Square, but I plunged right through on as straight a line as I could determine upon. I have run across passages in novels of great adventures in snowstorms, where there would be a vivid description of a man’s struggle on a snow-swept and windy plain, but I have always considered the presentation an exaggeration. I had got to the middie of the park and was up to my arms in a drift. It was so dark and the snow so blinding that for nearly twenty minutes I stuck there, and oame as near giving right up and sinking down there to die as a man cau and not do it. Somehow I got out and made my way along. When I reached the New York Club at Twenty-fifth street I was covered all over with ice and packed snow, and they would scarcely believe me that I had walked from Wall Street. It took three hours to make the journey. ” Down-town hotels were packed before nightfall with business men detained in the city by the storm. The night’s terrors were even worse than the day’s trouble. Men on the street staggered along as though drunk, and the police found a number of people just iu time to save them from freezing. All the cattle and milk trains are stalled on the road, and a famine in meat and milk has set in. People all over the city are using condenced milk. August Belmont wanted to get a bottle of milk for his baby and after a long search got it, but had to pay SI for a pint. Coal is a luxury, too. When coal carts appear on the East Side a crowd of poverty-stricken people flock around them and clamor for the precious black diamonds. The carts have to be well guarded by police, All the small dealers are out. Days must pass before the wants of the poor cau be provided for. The suffering and distress are something unknown in local history. The few grocers who have coal are charging 60 cents a pail, or at the rate of *4O a ton. Bread has run out, and flour is scarce. Funerals have been delayed, and not a burial has been made since Sunday. The ODly intelligence received from Boston since Sunday esme by way of London cable Wednesday evening. It was a dispatch from the Boston Herald , which said that the city of culture and baked beans was as much isolated as New York.