Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 February 1891 — DAMAGED BY WATER. [ARTICLE]

DAMAGED BY WATER.

The Laee tram Btab W .tar •* PUtabmrg IJ Goat, A Pittsburg anecial of the 19th says: The waters are now receding, but H hav been a frightful visitation of flood, fortunately unaccompanied by loss of life. Itj is estimated that the damage by the flood! will reach •1,500,000. At least 2,000 families in the lowerportions of Pittaburg ana Allegheny City have been confined to the upper stories of their houses. Between 25,000 and 50.000 men lose three days’ wages by the stoppage of the iron and steel mill*. Outsiders may form an intelligent idea of the awful waste of water when it in stated that the back waters of the Allea’ gheny cover Penn avenue in the vicinity of the Hotel Anderson and Mercantile Library Hall, where passengers are compelled to stand on the seats, and there is a foot and a half of water on the orchestra floor of the Duquesne Theater on Pennsylvania avenue, of which Messrs. Henderson, of Chicago, and Norton, of St Louis, are the Managers. The lessees will be compelled to remove the carpets and ora chestra chairs, and there was no matinee yesterday afternoon or performance at night. Tne Bijou theater, on Sixth street, is also closed because the main entranee can not be reached except by skiffs. The Ex- 1 position buildings in Pittsbnargare underj water, wbile the muddy stream is within one foot of the Exposition ball park fence in Allegheny. The Pittsburg & Lake Erid' Railroad Company was compelled to bus-, pend business entirely. Traffic ceased when the stream became so high that ig extinguished the fires in the locomotives. The Pittsburg district, bounded by Penn avenue, Duquesne way, First and Tenth, ten solid blocks, is under water, the flood reaching a foot higher than the first floor. The people are supplied with bread and canned goods by men in skiffs. Cooking is out of the question. 'Busses and rowboats are being used to transport people from Pennsylvania avenue, along Sixth and Seventh streets, to the bridges stretchy ing from those thoroughfares across tho Allegheny. Big lusty fellows in high gum 1 boots are also carrying people through the water for the sum of ten cents. The police* men in some portions of Alleghe y aredow ing duty in skiffs, and one of them wad hailed from a second story with the announcement that a child was dead. The family is poor and is being helped by charitable neighbirs. The undertaker must bring the coffin in a boat. The Pittsburg & Western and the West Pennsylvania division of the Pennsylvania railroad are completely crippled. In Allegheny the top of box care on the Pittsburg & Western trestle are barely visible, while the West Pennsylvania in some places is five feet under water. Bridges are being held down by trains loaded with stone, upon wuich has been heaped pigiron.

A remarkable exhibition of nerve on the part of both railroad employesand passengers was the pulling of a Pittsburg & Lake Erie passenger train through six feet of water into the Pittsburg station. It re 4 quired the combined efforts of six locomotives. There was a funeral of the South' Side in which coffin mourners and friends; were transported by boats to dry land' where cariages were entered. Some idea of the immense damage to' railroads may be had in a telegram from] Steubenville, which says it will be likebuilding a new line to put the Wheeling &i Lake Erie in shape for running. Up in! the mountain region, cast of Connellsville,' the Baltimore & Ohio west bound track is buried under immense land slides. In’West Moreland county two dams burst,one! at Mammoth mine, the scene of the recentdisaster, flooding the country for miles. Ati Waltz’s Mills abursted dam carried away] innumerable bay stacks and outbuildings,! besides fences. ,