Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 December 1900 — RIVERS IN A FLOOD. [ARTICLE]

RIVERS IN A FLOOD.

Disaster Along the Monongahela, the Allegheny ami the Ohio. The damage done by the storm which swept the- Atlantic seaboard, the eastern lake region and the Ohio valley Sunday and Monday can scarcely be estimated because reports have not been received from numerous localities where the loss Avas greatest. In Pennsylvania and West Virginia the damage by flood will reach into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. As far west as the State of Ohio the wind and rain wrought great destruction of property. Tn their mad rush the waters ruined hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of property, .caused the loss of several lives, temporarily threw out of employment thousands of workmen by the forced suspension of the niany industrial establishments lining the banks of both the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers, and rendered hundreds of families homeless.

From Ohio points come stories of desolation and destruction of property. In Columbus trees all over the city were broken and twisted and trains from all directions are badly delayed. At Chagrin Falls the telephone switchboard burned out and set fire to half a dozen houses. At Cambridge several buildings were blown down and their contents destroyed. The Ohio river and all streams In the hot)them portion of the State are rising rapidly. A reservoir, located a mile above Chauueey, burst and flooded the town. Nearly every residence in the place was damaged. A hundred yards of railroad track was washed out. One hundred men working in the Chuuncey mine narrowly escaped drowning. Trains all through Tennessee were badly delayed. No trains reached Paducah, Ky„ over the Nashville and Chattanooga line for three days. Ruin fell incessantly for more than fifty hours throughout West Virginia, and all the streams are overflowing. The Kanawha at Charleston reached the danger point, and people in the lowlands hastily moved out. In the Guyandotte valiey the river and its tributaries are. overflowing their banks and are bearing away quantities of property. Nine thousand logs have gone out, taking with them, the false work of the tAvo new Guyandotte Valley Railroad bridges south of Barboursrille. Loss estimated at $20,000 to $25,000. The track of the new Guyandotte Valley Railroad, just completed to Salt Rock, a distance of eighteen miles, has been almost ruined.