Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 January 1899 — THIRTY LIVES IN JEOPARDY. [ARTICLE]

THIRTY LIVES IN JEOPARDY.

Break in Cleveland I'am Lets Loose y Immense Flood. A dam under the Willson avenue bridge at Cleveland gave way Wednesday morning. Baek of the dam is a body of water a mile and one-half long, hundreds of feet wide and in places twenty-five to thirty feet deep. The break allowed torrents of water to pour down on the flats below. The cause of the flood is the recent heavy rains, the melting snow from the hillsides and. a pond of several acres overflowing. Streams for several miles up the gully added their quota of water. The Willson avenue bridge is 700 feet long and has been built but a few months. It cost $350,000. The break in the dam, which was an unsubstantial mass of earth, occurred while thirty men were at work in the artificial canal being sunk by the city engineers to allow the pentup water to find a gradual and safe outlet. These men had a most harrowing experience and escaped with their lives with not one second to spare. The warning given them was not sufficient.to even arouse their fears of what was happening, and hardly a man had looked up from the bottom of the deep trench in which they were working before the crash came and the awful flood had broken loose. The rater undermined an embankment 150 feet high and fifty feet in area, sweeping it down with the raging flood.