Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 June 1892 — FLOODED BY THE FLOYD [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FLOODED BY THE FLOYD

SCENES OF UNUTTERABLE DESOLATION AND WOE. \ ___ The FrigliMul Flood Which the Floyd Elv«r Poured Over an Enterprising; lowa City, {Sweeping Av'ay Homes and Crushing Out Lives. Sioux City’s ’Calamity. Sioux City correspondence: One of the saddest scene in the history of the flood disaster of the West stands revealed. The contemptible Floyd River, which spread such desolation through this city, has crept back to its original narrow channel, leaving vast piles of shattered houses, torn up streets, broken telegraph poles fmcl tangled masses of debris to at-' test the fury with which it swept the place, engulfing the homes of hundreds and extinguishing human lives. Not less than thirty-five persons were drowned, and just how many more may have been borne to the raging Missouri may never be known. The flood did iiotsweepdown in a wall

crushing out life and homes by its very weight, as Johnstown’s flood did. It was expected, to some extent, for weeks of rain had poured ..down upon the 'hills at whose feet Sioux City lies, and had turned every lit-

saved 27 lives aud lost tie gutter of a bis own. .stream in Western lowa into a turbulent river; but Tuesday night preceding the overflow the slow fall of the waters was hurried into a fierce down-

fall, and when day broke "Wednesday morning the Floyd was tearing at its bank. In the middle of the night a wild gale began, and that, with the rain, did the business of death. The Floyd runs east of the thick of the city i nto the Missouri River., which bends at this point, and is almost directly north. It comes from the hills, and is an inconsiderable stream for the most of its course till it reaches Sioux City, where it broadens somewhat. In dry weather the numberless streams that feed it it are mere ditches, but under such storms as we have had lately they grow wild. They gorged the Floyd. The rising of the wind forced the water in the Floyd down through its banks, and finally pitched a volume into the course through Sioux City that«would have strained the capacity of a great river. It reached the town at 8 o'clock in a wave about two feet high, which roared over the Floyd course and tossed spray up about the piers of the railroad bridges. Preparations have already been made for clearing out families and personal property in the district •sure to be flooded, and under the instructions of the police chief, mount* ed men.had been sent from house to ihouse'with a warning based on reports •from .up the river. The first wave irolled to the knees of the horses of flhe patrolmen, but they kept about ltheif duty pushing through the flood and driving families from the houses. In .cases this was a difficult matter. "The "Floyd had never shown anger before, and even when the first rush ■came many persons clung to their little .property and refused to leave their homes. The mounted men worked till the spray was dashing over their horses’ flanks and then took ,to the high places with the hun•dred&of workingmen who had seen the tide ooming and had left the factories, the packing-houses and the roundhouses and scrambled for safety. After the Lull the Storm. There was a lull after the firstburst, and the people standing on the bridges and looking up the river said that whaf had come before was mere petulance to the greater force behind. Up among the hills the waters of the Floyd were seen leaping into the air, but charging down always between the steep hanks, with the tnunks of trees above them frantically tossed like the clubs ,of some barbarian

army, as far as the eye could follow the waters irito the woods above. And in a few minutes their force was felt in repeated bursts that covered a great section of the city with the mad flood. The scene that followed it was cruel beyond belief. In the part of the flooded district that bore the main weight of the attack hundreds of poor working people lived with their families in fsame houses convenient to the factories where the heads of the families were employed. The flood swept these slight tenements before it, and made them driftwood be-

fore the veiy •eyes of the catchers on the bridges. Some of the slighter ones were picked from their posts and tossed, contents and all, on the surface of the water. Others made a stout resistence, hut were crushed or jjent as it happened, and sent on the Same course. In less than an hour apd a half the homes of 3,500 people had been either borne down toward the Missouri as driftwood or were standing dismantled in the middle of the flood. From the bridges the people who had fled at the first warning watched the dreadful scene. They saw men and women clinging to the roofs of houses and screaming for help. The waves climbed, and soon, before the eyes of the watchers, these human creatures were dashed from their places and sent whirling down the river, driftwood themselves. Above the Milwaukee and St. Paul bridge a whole family clung to the roof of a frame house. Among them was a little girl. Suddenly she let go her hold and slipped into the flood. Later she was found alive lying on a pile of driftwood half a mile below. Her father and the rest of the family went away with the house, which succumbed to the waves shortly after the child fell. The father was drowned, but the other members of the family escaped. The mother was rescued by an engineer who had himself been let down from the railroad bridge to the plank to which she clung. Facing; a Dreadful Fate. Houses disappeared completely and the families clinging to the roofs were seen next hundreds of yards down stream wildly striking out for support from the drift. Some were thrown unconscious into masses of wood piled against the bridge piers. Still more were seen fighting for life, tossed in the middle current of the

stream. Some of these were thrown by side currents to the -shore; some went straight to the Missouri. It was a desperate task to face the fury of the flood, but many brave men ventured out in small boats and picked up the drowning men and women. While the flood was at its height many of these were saved by ropes held by men in safe ■places. Some were armed with ropes and long poles, and.a large number of lives were saved in consequence. One of those thus rescued was William Mills. He came sailing down with the tide in a>connnon dry-_goods "box. Long 'before he reached the trestle-work he had attracted the people's attention, and the life-sav-

iag rape was lowered and in waiting. Just before be reached it, however, the box burned, and Mills .all hut missed the rope. He succeeded in grasping the rope, and was quickly hauled up onto the level track. Many incidents of • the fldod were thrilling. Chief Hawman rescued Robert Ooekran's family and Victor Grille Fs family from tbe roofs of their houses. Louis Krunaann, a milkman, saw two men go out in a boat, chop a hole in a roof, and draw out a family who were shivering in the water, that reached to their chins in the back room of the top floor. The two men started out on a second trip, capsized, and were drowned. The most pathetic incident connected with the disaster was the drowning of Andrew G. Anderson, who had saved twenty-seven lives. Anderson was exhausted by his perilous work and his friends had forced him to desist, but later, when a family was discovered in a building likely to float away any moment, he took a boat and went to its rescue. Being capsized, he was too weak to save himself, although an expert swimmer. Four years ago Anderson swam out into the Missouri River and saved two lives. A handsome monument will be erected by the Knights of Pythias lodge to which he belonged. Scenes of Woe and Desolation

The scene when the flood, having receded, left the marks of its deadlyhand on the city were most distressing. Piled up on all sides were seen huge banks of wood and iron, paving blocks, the roofs of bouses, telegraph poles and big trees dragged from the hills. In the places where high streets had been were mere bogs, into which the workmen sank to their knees. Low expanses in the Floyd Valley were hip deep in water. Looking upand down from the bridge one saw spaces which were recently dotted with little frame houses absolutely bare of structures qf any kind. In the places where tenants had been thickest one only saw shattered skel-

etons of homes. Railroad tracks were twisted and forked, roundhouses had been lifted and demolished and the broken upper ends of poles hung to the trolley wires that used to run the electric cars.

Around the bureau of information, which bad been organized by the

citizens, the scenes were most pathetic. Mothers came looking for their children, husbands for their wives, and children for their parents. In some cases the committee was able to give information as to where the missing ones could be found, but it was too often the case that the seekers went away benumbed at heart. In some cases the suspense became grief, when it was broken by the announcement of the recovery of a body. The Work of Keller. As soon as possible after the flood the work of rescue and relief was begun.* Private houses were thrown open to the homeless and soup

kitchens were organized. The council voted $5,000 to the relief fund. When Gov. Boies telegraphed the Mayor an offer of assistance that official pluekily responded that Sioux City could take care of herself. This, however, was reconsidered when the full magnitude of the disaster became known, andmow relief is coming in from all parts:of lowa. The most gratifying features of the visitation were the warm-heartedness of the wealthy. One burly Irishman, who had lost heavily by the flood stood in his 'Office door after the waters had subsided and distributed $5 and $lO bills to homeless people.

At• the Stock Yards. The destruction wrought at the stock yards was indescribable and the loss.amounts to over half a million. Blocks of hog pens were floated away and the noise of the breaking timbers sounded like the crack of artillery. Scale houses, slaughter houses, barrels and tubs, cattle sheds, chutes, etc., were swept by the flood and piled ten to fifteen feet high in one indescribable confusion. Hundreds of hogs and cattle perished. Toward Leech street, where the -strongest current ran, the force of •the water was so great as to scoop out a channel six feet deep. The heavy stone curbing was swept away and telegraph, telephone and electric light poles and wires were contorted :into tangled masses. 'A Perilous -Railroad Trip. From |he eve of the flood until Thursday no train entered the city. Then a train was pushed through on the Chicago, Minneapolis and Omaha line, from Manilla, and the trip was one of the most perilous ever under taken. A repair train was sent ahead and the toad was practically built up ahead .'of' the passenger coaches. At every mile washouts were encountered, and when Mapleton was reached the train ran through Jakes bigger than those on which clubmen sail in their yachts in the summer time. The Maple River had overflawed its banks and for miles around the farms lay under from three to ten feet of water. When the Little Sioux was reached the situation was found to be extremely dangerous. The toad here runs over a long .trestle across the bottoms that adjoin the Little Sioux. The trestle is six feet above the bottoms, but there the water was rushing tumultuously ' against the

tracks. A gale of fifty miles an hour was blowing, and when it swept over a lake made by the flood for five miles on either side it tossed up breakers like triio.se that rush across Lake Michigan. Half way out the engineer halted. The conductor . got out and signaled him ahead. He went on through the flood. The passengers, in fear and many of them white-faced.stood upon the platforms-and clutched at the handrails. The waters sprayed around them and they could feel the trestle quaking. The trestle passed, the next danger point was the bridge oter

the river, which was swinging be* neath the blows of the noisy Little Sioux. It was stanch, though, and the train ran over in safety and reached Sioux City. Although nearly 4,000 people were rendered homeless there is little destitution, as the relief committees are

carrying out the work of assistance on systematic principles, and besides most of the heads of families are employed in clearing up the debris left by the flood. Sioux City is hopeful and a few weeks more will see it “boomin’’ on the road to renewed prosperity, as though a financial loss of nearly $2,000,000 had not been visited upon it.

ANDREW ANDERSON,

SCENE OF THE AWFUL FLOOD. General view of the city, looking west across Floyd River. Almost every lot in the blank -space shown in the foreground contained a house, and all were swept away.

HOW MRS. KELLY SPENT 24 HOURS.

TÆFE SAWERS AT WORK.

SCENE AT THE RAILROAD BRIDGE.

WRECKED PORTION OF RAILROAD LEADING INTO STOCKYARDS.