Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 May 1893 — TOWNS ARE SUBMERGED [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TOWNS ARE SUBMERGED

GREAT LEWISTON RESERVOIR BREAKS ITS BOUNDS. Seventeen Thousand Acres of Water Loose in the Miami Valley—Bridges, Railroads and Crops Destroyed—Loss Will Be *1,000,000. Were Warnea In Time, The west bank of the great Lewiston, Ohio, reservoir, covering 17,000 acres and known as the second largest artificial body of water in the world, broke with a thunderous roar as the result of the heavy and almost Incessant rainfall of the last week. The break had been anticipated and every effort made to prevent a catastrophe. A ser.es of temporary dams, causing dead water, and which are likely to give way, are all that stand between Miami Valley towns and a Johnstown disaster as far as a loss of property ts concerned. Already many buildings have been swept away. Over 25,000 acres of land and Lewiston and Newport are partially submerged. There have yet been no fatalities, as the people have had ample warning. It is reported that the water has, despite the Series of dams, reached Sidney, and partially engulfed that city. The great-

est fear exists. The damage will be enormous and nothing, it seems, can stop the flood. When the rupture comes the temporary dams will be swept away and the tiood will sweep everything before It. The property loss it is estimated will be over $1,000,000. Hundreds Will He Ruined. An Urbana correspondent says: The water came rushing down in a flood ten feet deep and three miles wide, completely submerging the country around and carrying everything in its way. The big covered bridge 150 feet in length was swung completely round and then torn lojse and swept away. In the course of the flood stood the houses of Jack Smith and William Devault, and a largo number of tenemens houses and squatters’ and bachelors’ homes. All of these are submerged, though fortunately everybody managed to escape lrom the danger. People fled in-iterror from their homes, while the rushing flood came on down the valley, taking everything before it. The lirst town along the course of the flood is Port Jefferson, where the dam throws the water into the Miami Canal. A portion of the town is low and it was badly flooded. Quincy, Logansville, Degraff, Piqua, Troy,. and Dayton are also in the course of the flood. The artificial bank of the reservoir is five miles around and most of-the way fully twenty feet above the land, and the bottom of the reservoir itself is at least ten feet above the immediate country below. The water averaged ten feet deep over the w hole reservoir, so some idea can be formed of the great volume that came rushing down on the country below. The Lewiston reservoir is looated five miles northeast of Huntsville, Logan County, and contains 12,000 acres of water. Hundreds of families left their homes and fled out of the reach of the coming torrent.

THE MIAMI VALLEY.