Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1901 — DISASTER BY FLOODS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

DISASTER BY FLOODS

VAST DAMAGE DONE BY STORM IN THE EAST. Departing Winter Gives a Final Blast Which Kcachea from Canada to South Carolina —Two Feet of Snow Falla in Ohio. Ohio, Pennsylvania, the .Virginias, Kentucky and other Southern States were ravaged by the storm king Friday and Saturday. Such a disastrous state of affairs lias not been experienced in twenty years. Business was at a standstill, mines, factories and streets were Hooded, wires were prostrated in every direction, firealarm and electric light service was crippled, bridges were washed away, street cars were abandoned and railway trains wgrd stalled nil over the country. In cities along the rivers the inhabitants hastened to places of safety, leaving their property to appease the fury of the floods. Enormous damage was done by the snow and rain, which fell continuously for almost two days. High winds added to the general destruction. The floods in the rivers at Pittsburg receded after inflicting damage estimated nt between $2,000,000 and $3,000,000, and throwing out of employment 50,000 workingmen. While there have been greater floods there, there was never one chat caused so much financial loss and discomfort. On the Fort Wayne the worst trouble was a snow blockade between Salem and Massillon, Ohio. This began Saturday morning and tied up the road in twenty-four hours. At 9 o’clock Sunday morning the track was cleared and trains began moving. The same trouble kept the Cleveland trains of the Pittsburg and Lake Erie lute, five trains having been blockaded at Windom, near Leavittsburg, for twenty-five hours. This snowfall did not extend oast of Newcastle, but at Youngstown, Ohio, it was two feet deep, and the drifting in the cuts north of that city were up to locomotive headlights. Big landslides occurred on the Pittsburg and Lake Erie, the Baltimore and

Ohio at Soho, on the Panhandle, on the south bide, the Bessemer at several points, and the Allegheny Valley near Franklin, l’a. The slide at Soho was 150 feet long, and it required fourteen hours' work to clear one track. At Skobo, between Monaca aud Aliquippa, the Lake Erie received its most serious landslide. One hundred feet of the west-bound track was curried fifty feet down the steep bank, the whole face of the bank slipping down into the river. On the linos of the Pennsylvania an 1 Baltimore and Ohio to Wheeling great damage is reported, and both lines were tied tip for several hours. Five miles of the Pittsburg. Bessemer nnd Lake Erie tracks were either under water or mud. The submerged districts in Pittsburg nnd Allegheny are a scene of abject misery. Cellars and in some instance? the first floors of stores and dwellings were covered with water. When the flood subsided it left behind a greasy, yellow scum two to three ib-.-lies deep. The damage to furniture and buildings in Allegheny is estimated at about SIOO,OOO. It will take two months of hot summer weather to thoroughly dry out these houses. In Pittsburg the loss to residences and stores and goods and the cost of cleaning up will amount to about $250,000 A great deal of damage was caused by the storm in Cleveland, Cincinnati an! other Ohio cities.

MAP SHOWING EXTENT OF STORM WHICH CAUSED THE FLOODS.