Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 April 1898 — LOSS IN THE MILLIONS [ARTICLE]

LOSS IN THE MILLIONS

ENOTMOU3 DAMAGE DONE BY RAGING FLOODS. Indiana and Ohio the Chief Sufferer* by Inundation* Which in Some Secti ns Have Reached an Unprecedented Height—Traffic Suspended. People Driven from Home. Flood damage reaching into the millions of dollars is reported throughout Indiana and Ohio. Thousands of families are homeless and many of them are dependent’ upon charity. Many cities report that the water is at the highest stage ever known. Illinois. Missouri, Pennsylvania and West Virginia also report rivers turned into raging torrents, but in those States the damage thus far done is comparatively insignificant. Two railroad wreckfe have resulted from washouts. One was in Ohio, where a Baltimore and Ohio passenger tt-ain went through a bridge near Frazeysburg. The other and the more serious one was near Columbus, Ind., where a wrecking train met disaster. Property loss in Indiana will exceed $1,000,000. Al) the streams are overflowing their banks, houses and railroad •racks have been washed away, and grow ing crops have been seriously damaged Near Greensburg, the loss of two lives is reported. Franklin has 200 homeless families to care for, while Shelbyville has 300 and Rushville 150. These are simply sample figures from entire hoosierdonr. At Warsaw the canal gave way and tile business section of the city was threatened, while at Shelbyville the levee proved too weak to withstand the raging waters. Throughout central and southern Ohio all the railroads are either crippled or totally disabled. The damage in the State may amount to $1,500,000. Dayton reports the conditions worse than at any period since IStiG, when the central part of that populous city was inundated. Delaware has four business blocks under water and a much wider territory threatened. Canal Dover is cut off from the outside world, and unless the waters soon subside many lives will be placed in jeopardy. The list of homeless in Zanesville foots up to 4,000. In Columbus 2,000 persons are imprisoned in the upper stories of dwellings in the western part of the city. They are surrounded by nn artificial lake, but. as the water there is said to be subsiding, they will soon be released from their peculiar imprisonment.

Aa idea of the flood conditions in various sections can be gleaned from condensed press dispatches given below: Indiana. The White river is still rising. The Richmond electric light plant is drowned out. Dams at Palestine and Oswego are reported in jeopardy. The canal north of Warsaw overflowed, flooding the entire vicinity. Between 100 and 150 Rushville families have been driven from their homes. At St. Paul, the Bickhart flour mills have been washed out and destroyed. The property loss in Decatur County is about •SIOO,OOO, and two lives have been lost in the flood. Several bridges on the Big Four and Cambridge railroads are out, as well as ten miles of roadbed. The loss to the farming community around Shelbyville is estimated at from SIOO,OOO to $21X1,000. Many important towns are temporarily cut off and trains have been entirely abandoned on some roads. Tire northeastern section of I ndianapolis is submerged, and many people have been driven from their homes or forced to the second stories. Between thirty and forty miles of track of the Louisville division of the PanHandle are washed away between Louisville and Indianapolis. Indian river and Young's creek have broken through the levees, flooding rhe northern and western parts of Franklin and sweeping many houses from their foundations. Two hundred families are homeless. Oh io. Hundreds are homeless at Newark. At Cincinnati the Ohio will probably •each fifty-five feet. Floods have caused a shutdown of nearly every factory in Hamilton. 11. C. Ross was killed as a bridge cob j&psed in Muskingtuu County. Four thousand Zanesville jx»ople have been driven from their homes, and few of them saved any household effects. Four squares of Delaware business houses are under water, and scores of wagon and foot bridges have been carried away. Nearly all'railroads in central and south, ern Ohio are either crippled or totally disabled because of washouts or destroyed bridges. , The Tuscarawas river has broken loose in one of the biggest floods ever known, and Canal Dover is entirely cut off from the outside, world. The levees which protected the west side of Columbus against ordinary floods are submerged. Fifteen hundred or 2,000 persons were driven to tie upper floors of dwellings situated in an artificial lake. A bridge over the Wakatomika creek at Frazeysburg ga've way while a Baltimore B.nd Ohio passenger train was crossing, and the whole train was submerged. Passengers crawled to the tops of the cars and were soon taken away by farmers in skiffs. No one was seriously injured.