The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado

L >> Logan Marshall >> The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado

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Fires burning in several places added to the horror, though no great
damage was done by these. Crushed and blackened ruins marked the spot of
the Union Depot, which collapsed during the storm, crushing a train
which was just ready to depart. Every building, tree and telegraph pole
in the district struck was leveled, and almost all the railroads
entering the city were obliged to suspend all passenger and freight
traffic.

RESCUE, RELIEF AND RECONSTRUCTION

The work of rescuing the mangled dead was bravely carried on the
following day and before many hours the American genius for
organization, order and action had met the demands of the overwhelming
disaster. While the dead were still lying awaiting burial, plans were
made to rebuild and resume again the work of life.

The local police and militia kept order. The city authorities and board
of trade organized relief corps. The brave spirit of self-reliance
triumphed over the appalling calamity. Money for relief was sent to the
city from many sources, and it is interesting to note that the citizens
of Johnstown, who had suffered from the great catastrophe of the
previous year, were among the first to offer help. They knew what
desolation meant.

THE ST. LOUIS TORNADO

A far more terrible story of death and destruction is that of the St.
Louis tornado of May 27, 1896, which lasted but half an hour, killed 306
persons and destroyed property to the amount of $12,000,000.

The same tornado visited many places in Missouri and Illinois, causing
an additional property loss of $1,000,000.

The sky grew black at 4 P. M., the sun was eclipsed in the whirl of
driving dust and dirt, mingled with the branches and leaves of trees,
the boards of buildings and other loose material torn off by the wind.
At times the wind blew eighty miles an hour. In that mad half hour,
while property was crumbling and hundreds of human lives being snuffed
out, thousands of maimed and bleeding persons were added to the awful
harvest of devastation.

FREAK DESTRUCTION

Over in East St. Louis, where the houses were all frail structures, the
destruction was greatest. The great Eads Bridge was twisted all out of
shape, and freight cars were tossed to and fro, tumbled into ditches and
driven sometimes into the fields many yards from where they had stood.
The great Vandalia freight house fell in a heap of utter ruin, burying
beneath it thirty-five men who had there sought refuge.

The swath cut was three blocks wide and four miles long. The top of the
bridge was knocked off as well as the big abutment. The Martell House
was blown into the Cokokia Creek and many were buried in the ruins.

To add to the horrors of the night the electric-light plants were
rendered incapable of service, and the gas lamps were also shut off,
leaving the city in utter darkness. Fire broke out in several portions
of the city, and the fire department was unable to make an effective
fight because of the choked condition of the streets and the large
number of firemen who were engaged in the imperative work of rescuing
the dead and wounded.

ANNIHILATION

The City Hospital, which fortunately survived the storm, was filled to
overflowing with the injured. In addition to those who were killed in
their houses and in the streets, scores of dead were carried away by the
waters of the Mississippi River. Many steamers on the levee went down
in the storm. From the "Great Republic," one of the largest steamers on
the lower river, not a man escaped. The word "annihilation" is perhaps
the only one that can adequately describe the awful work of the tornado.

The rising of the sun in the morning revealed a scene of indescribable
horror. The work of carrying out the maimed and dead immediately began,
but it was a task of big proportions, as many bodies were totally buried
under the debris. Hundreds of families were rendered homeless, and the
business portion of the community was almost in absolute ruin.

Lack of food added to the misery. Bread sold for fifteen cents a loaf. A
large number of military tents were shipped into the city and many
families found shelter in freight yards. The Ohio and Mississippi
railroad companies issued permits for the use of their empty cars.
Contributions to aid in the work of rebuilding and relief were received
and the city council voted $100,000.

It was several weeks before the city began to resume a normal existence.
The presence of armed men and endless piles of debris, the suspension of
traffic, the grief for departed dear ones, and the sight of the many
injured, all contributed to a condition of solemnity and sorrow. "The
memory of the strange and awful scenes that have been presented by East
St. Louis for the past three days," said one clergyman of the city,
"will live in the minds of its inhabitants for years. But our people are
too courageous and energetic to be deterred from repairing the physical
havoc wrought."

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PREVIOUS GREAT DISASTERS

FLOODS

Johnstown, Pa., breaking of the Conemaugh dam, May 31, 1889; 2,235
killed.

Galveston, Tex., tidal wave, September 8, 1900; 9,000 killed.

Mississippi Valley, May, 1912; 1,000 killed.

WIND STORMS

Adams County, Miss., May 7, 1840; 317 killed. Same county, June, 1842;
500 killed.

Louisville, Ky., March 27, 1890; 113 killed, 200 injured; property loss,
$2,500,000.

Cherokee, Buena Vista and Pocahontas Counties, Iowa, July 6, 1893, 89
killed; property loss, $250,000.

Little Rock, Ark., October 2, 1894; 4 killed; property loss, $500,000.

Denton and Grayson Counties, Tex., May 15, 1896; 78 killed and 150
injured; property loss, $165,000.

St. Louis and East St. Louis, Mo., May 27, 1896; 306 identified killed;
property loss, $12,000,000. Same tornado visited many places in Missouri
and Illinois, causing an additional property loss of $1,000,000.

West India hurricane, September 29 and 30, 1896, covering Florida,
Georgia, South and North Carolina, Virginia, District of Columbia,
Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York; 114 killed; property loss,
$7,000,000.

Eastern Michigan, May 25, 1897; 47 killed, 100 injured; property loss,
$400,000.

Galveston hurricane, September 8, 1900; 9,000 killed; property loss,
$30,000,000; estimated wind velocity, 120 miles an hour.

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CHAPTER XXXIII

LESSONS OF THE CATACLYSM AND PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES

NOT A VISITATION OF PUNISHMENT--THE HELPLESSNESS OF MAN BEFORE
NATURE--THE KINSHIP OF HUMANITY--INCENTIVE TO ENTERPRISE--THE GREATEST
LESSON--MEASURES AGAINST REPETITION OF DISASTER--UTILIZING NATURAL
RESERVOIRS--PROMOTION OF FORESTRY--CONSTRUCTION OF DAMS--SECRETARY
LANE'S PLAN--A PROBLEM FOR THE PANAMA ENGINEERS.

With each succeeding dispatch from the districts stricken by flood and
tornado it became clearer that the first impressions of the disaster,
shocking as they were, fell not far beneath the dreadful reality.

Hundreds overwhelmed in the rushing floods, hundreds of thousands spared
from sudden death only to suffer hunger and thirst and hardship and the
perils of fire, cities submerged, villages swept away, countless homes
and vast industries destroyed, miles upon miles of populous land drowned
under turbulent waters, and over all the grim shadows of starvation and
disease--this catastrophe defies picture and parallel to express its
desolating horror.

The widespread calamity, which smote with its cruelest force the
beautiful city of Dayton, is one of those for which no personal
responsibility can be placed. Like the tidal flood which devastated
Galveston and the earth upheaval which laid San Francisco in ruins, it
is a convulsion which could not have been foreseen or stayed.

NOT A VISITATION OF PUNISHMENT

In the presence of such a fearful disaster there are few persons who
will say, but there are some who will think, that this is in some manner
a visitation decreed upon the communities which suffer. The very
magnitude and superhuman force of it will suggest to many minds the
thought of an ordered punishment and warning for offenses against a
higher power.

Such a concept, happily more rarely held than in earlier times, is, of
course, revolting to sober judgment and to the instincts of religious
reverence. For it would imply that multitudes of the innocent should
suffer indescribable cruelty; it would attempt the impossible feat of
justifying the smiting of Dayton, where the inhabitants lived lives of
peaceful, helpful industry, and the sparing of communities where men
serve the gods of dishonest wealth and vicious idleness.

This was no vengeance decreed for human shortcomings. It was superhuman,
but not supernatural. It was but a manifestation of the unchangeable,
irresistible forces of nature, governed by physical laws which are
inexorable. Nature knows neither revenge nor pity. She does not select
her victims, nor does she turn aside to save the good who may be in her
path. As her concern is not with individuals, but with the race, so she
is moved not by mercy, but by law.

To the limited vision of man, with his brief life, nature seems
incredibly cruel and wasteful. Her teachings must be learned at fearful
cost. Men will ask themselves what lessons are taught by this
overwhelming sacrifice.

THE HELPLESSNESS OF MAN BEFORE NATURE

There is made plain, first, the utter powerlessness of man when he pits
his strength against the full demonstration of the laws of nature. It is
revealed, again, that there are forces which before all the might of
human intellect remain unconquerable. The same grim lesson confronts the
scientist whose babe is snatched from him by death; it confronts the
millionaire who feels the chill of age creeping upon the frame that has
upheld the finances of a nation and has made and unmade panics with the
crooking of a finger.

THE KINSHIP OF HUMANITY

But there flows from such a catastrophe a brighter and better influence
than this. With all its horror and shock, there comes inevitably a great
joining of minds and hearts. The whole world feels the thrill of kinship
and a common humanity. For the time being all conceptions of social
caste and class distinction, the most unworthy thoughts of beings
fashioned all in the image of their Maker, are leveled and forgotten.
Indifference and selfishness disappear. Throughout the nation,
throughout the world, there thrills the uplifting current of
brotherhood, the consciousness that "we be of one blood."

Wherever civilization has exercised its beneficent influence upon the
minds of men there is felt, for a little time at least, the sense that
all humanity is one; that the strife of man against man and nation
against nation is but a pitiful thing, and that we may better concern
ourselves with trying to make the common lot brighter and so soften the
rigors of the existence we all must face.

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF WEALTH

Specifically does not such an appalling event serve to awaken
responsibility among the wealthy and powerful toward the poor and the
weak? When all goes well, when there are no thunderous warnings such as
this of the helplessness of man against the forces arrayed against him,
the fortunate do not realize that for millions mere existence is a
poignant struggle; that hunger and cold and disease prevail even when
there are no ghastly floods to make them vivid and picturesque. We do
not doubt that there are many who will be stirred by the shock of this
dreadful story to a deeper and more sympathetic understanding with the
conditions that surround them on every side.

INCENTIVE TO ENTERPRISE

If any further good can come from a catastrophe so cruel, it may be in
the stimulating pride of race which it engenders. Such experiences have
a unique effect upon the American nature. The greater the calamity which
falls upon a community the greater seems to be the rebound. Destruction
and hardship seem to open great reservoirs of latent energy,
inventiveness and enterprise.

Galveston, suddenly overwhelmed by a convulsion of nature, apparently
was doomed to molder away in forgotten ruins; but her people cleared the
wreck and built a greater city than before. Before the ashes of the old
San Francisco had cooled the vision of a better community rose before
her inhabitants, and they made it real.

Calamity sets free such a flow of creative power that destruction itself
makes for progress. These disasters concentrate upon constructive
enterprise stories of emotional energy that in other times are expended
in the fierce struggle of competitive existence.

THE GREATEST LESSON

But the great hidden teaching of disaster is that the laws of nature are
eternal and inexorable; that they move with unerring precision and
resistless force. And this truth applies not only to the tremendous
powers of the hurricane, the flood and the earthquake, but to economic
principles, which are simply a translation into human terms of the laws
manifested in inanimate nature.

The woman whose health is wrecked by overwork, the child whose body and
mind are stunted by early labor, the tenement dweller who falls victim
to disease because of unwholesome conditions of living--these are
sacrifices to natural laws as much as are the thousands swept away in
the floods. But, while the flood deaths are due to an outburst of the
elements which man cannot control, these others are the result of his
defiance of the laws of nature.

There is another difference: The victims of economic wrongs due to
cupidity and indifference outnumber a thousand to one the victims of
natural causes beyond control. All the deaths in these fearful floods
are less than those caused every year in a single large city by
conditions that might be remedied.

Nature decrees that those who do not have certain amounts of fresh air
and food and rest shall die; the law is inexorable. But it is
civilization which defies it and brings down the penalty.

THE AWAKENING TO OTHER LAWS OF NATURE

A stranger thought is that many whose hearts are melted by this disaster
and whose checkbooks open to the suffering survivors are habitually
indifferent to the more deadly conditions existing on all sides of their
homes. Men contribute generously to the relief funds who, if asked to
surrender a fractional part of their dividends in order to make work
safer and more healthful and more humane for employees, would berate the
suggestion as anarchistic.

This is not due to hardness of heart; it is due to faults of vision. Men
display such sympathy in one case and such ruthlessness in another
simply because civilization has not yet advanced far enough to create
generally the sense of responsibility which is called social
consciousness.

There are those who believe that the good impulses aroused by such
events as now appeal to us tend to awaken this consciousness; on the
other hand, a $5,000 contribution to a flood relief fund may, by salving
the conscience of the giver, close his mind to the need for changing
industrial conditions or expending some of his tenement rents for decent
sanitation.

Our own belief is that each calamity brings the minds of the nation into
closer sympathy and hastens the day when all men will understand that
the society they have builded is guilty of causing miseries just as
great as those we are now witnessing, the defying the laws of nature
because of indifference and greed.

THE NEED FOR ACTION

This country has suffered from many great floods in past years, but none
so awful in its scope and terrible consequences. The present calamity
must bring the country to its sober senses and make us see the positive
necessity--the inevitable MUST--of taking immediate and adequate
measures to guard against the repetition of such a disaster. "Strike
while the iron is hot," has been the battle-cry of men of action
throughout the world! And today, while the iron of adversity is hot in
the bosom of the Republic, is the time to strike upon the ideas that are
to make the heroic surgery of healing.

What is the remedy for these mighty floods that are sweeping and ruining
the interior country? Beyond the supreme consideration of the loss of
life they are the financial tragedies of the century. They occur at rare
intervals in Ohio and Indiana and in New York. But in the valley of the
Mississippi and in the Ohio Valley they are almost an annual or
bi-annual scourge of waters, terrific in suffering and appalling in
cost.

NOT A QUESTION OF COST

No expenditure of public money is too great that will strengthen the
defenses of the people against the giant forces of destruction in the
Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. No cost in national expenditure for
permanent defense against such catastrophes would approximate the cost
in a single decade to the pockets of the people, not to speak of the
uncountable value of human life. Governor Cox, of Ohio, estimated that
the damage in Ohio alone by the recent floods was more than
$300,000,000--nearly as much as the cost of the Panama Canal. The total
cost of the recent flood is vastly greater than that of the Panama
Canal!

The American Government can no longer stop to consider money in dealing
with the problems of internal economy and of elemental humanity. The
floods create an emergency as definite and imperative as war. It is time
now to start some movement for the preservation of life and property
against such occurrences.

MEASURES AGAINST REPETITION OF DISASTER

It is not the mission of this book to prescribe plans for meeting the
situation. That must be the work of a corps of trained engineers who
shall study the whole problem comprehensively and in detail. Rather it
is our purpose here to bring home the overwhelming need for prompt
action. We may be permitted, however, to point in a general way, and on
high authority, the general lines that the necessary remedies must take.

The river problems in the great central valleys present certain
difficulties which engineers have been unable to overcome. If levees are
constructed, it is found that the bed of the stream rises also, so that
the situation is not materially changed. If channels are deepened, the
fury of the floods is increased. If the construction of reservoirs is
proposed, there are very important questions of location and danger.

UTILIZING NATURAL RESERVOIRS

In many places the Mississippi River, closely diked, flows high above
the lands adjacent. Even at New Orleans, 107 miles from the Gulf, it is
during high water ten to fifteen feet above the level of the city.
Obviously the levee system, while useful everywhere and in some
localities adequate, is not a universal remedy. Reservoirs properly
constructed should be of service in storing the waters of many such
rivers as those that have caused the havoc in Ohio and Indiana, but to
meet the requirements they would have to be of enormous size, very
numerous and costly, as Professor Willis S. Moore, chief of the Weather
Bureau, points out.

Nature itself has provided in lowlands throughout all of these valleys
receptacles which, before men came, took up the surplus waters. We have
reclaimed millions of acres of these lands on the theory that we could
confine the rivers which once overflowed them, but thus far we have
failed to establish the theory.

It is probable that any successful national work for the control of
rivers will have to start with the idea of utilizing some of these
natural reservoirs. The lands would not be habitable of course, but for
agriculture they would be enriched instead of, as now, devastated. To
depopulate some such tracts would not be as costly or as terrible as to
leave them to the sweep of irresistible torrents, repeated year after
year.

PROMOTION OF FORESTRY

Despite Professor Moore's very positive denial of the value of
reforestation as a preventive of floods, it is claimed by many
authorities that much of the destruction is due to the fact that the
states of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois have been almost denuded of such
forests as originally stood there. No impediment is offered to the flow
of water and disastrous results follow. But in any event there would
have been great floods because of the location of the rainstorms as
noted.

CONSTRUCTION OF DAMS

The topography of the country must be taken into account. Both valleys,
the Miami particularly, are veined with streams tributary to the rivers,
and in times of flood the water rises with amazing rapidity and spreads
far and wide over the valley floor. The level character of the region in
which Dayton itself lies and the fact that there is not enough pitch to
the land below to carry off the water accounts for the depth and extent
of the floods. Dayton has had many of them. What Congress can do to
prevent or minimize them in future by putting the army engineers at work
to construct dams for the collection and restraint of waters in the
valleys north of the threatened cities must be done, whatever the cost.

SECRETARY LANE'S PLAN

Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior, has outlined a plan for
preventing such floods as devastated Ohio and Indiana. The plan hinges
on the deepening and widening of the channels of all streams that are
liable to flood conditions. Mr. Lane hopes to see the idea carried out
through the cooperation of the Federal Government, with the aid of the
states immediately endangered.

Aside from the perpetual protection against flood, which he believes his
plan would give to settlers in low regions, there are widespread
districts along the Mississippi and many other rivers that would be
thrown open to settlement. The land thus reclaimed from the swamps might
go a long way, in Mr. Lane's opinion, to reimburse the states for the
appropriations they would be called upon to make. Mr. Lane says:

"The rainstorm, I know, was phenomenal, and even with the system I have
suggested would have doubtless resulted in material damage and the loss
of some lives. But flood conditions reappear every spring in some
noticeable way, and my plan would obviate most of the resulting damage.

"It will not do for Ohio or Indiana or even the two states together to
spend their money generously in clearing the beds of the streams within
their boundaries. That would merely carry the flood more swiftly to the
state lines to the south, and the water would back more angrily than
ever into what would quickly be great lakes. The thing is too large for
the states alone. A harmonious, scientific system must be worked out by
the federal authorities, and the states must then make their
contributions in the way that will do the most good to the whole valley
affected."

SENATOR NEWLAND'S PLAN

Senator Francis G. Newlands, of Nevada, who has made a long study of the
whole subject of reclamation and conservation, and who speaks with
authority on the subject says:

"The appalling disasters in Ohio and Indiana bring home more forcibly
than ever the conviction that our present method of dredging, levees and
bank revetment in limited districts is fundamentally inadequate. These
things will not protect dwellers on the lower reaches of our rivers so
long as there is no control of the headwaters.

"We must adopt an adequate system for the control of the run-off at the
headwaters of the tributaries of the Mississippi. The people of
Pittsburgh and Dayton are entitled to this, no less than the people of
lower Mississippi are entitled to levees. I trust these floods will
rouse the American conscience in these matters."

Senator Newlands has urged that $50,000,000 a year be used for the next
ten years to develop a comprehensive scheme of storing the excess flood
waters at the heads of rivers.

The Democratic platform contained a plank which promised the support of
the party to a national scheme of river control. This has already been
brought to the attention of President Wilson. With the horrible scenes
of the inundated towns of Ohio and Indiana before them, this pledge is
likely to become a living promise to the party in power.

A PROBLEM FOR THE PANAMA ENGINEERS

There is one thing to remember. Our stupendous enterprise of the Panama
Canal will soon be completed. Its vast equipment of the world's newest
and best machinery for digging and filling will be unemployed. The
world's greatest engineer, Colonel Goethals, will also be at leisure.
Why not then provide for the transfer of all the wonderful machinery at
Panama, under personal charge and direction of Colonel Goethals, to the
supreme necessities of the Mississippi and Ohio valleys? The whole
American people would applaud and approve this disposition of our great
engineer and his great equipment.

This new national necessity is as vital and even more pressing than the
Panama Canal. It is worthy of the great Republic and of the great
engineer--an achievement if successful which would twin with Panama and
make Colonel Goethals immortal and our country's beneficence and
enterprise famous through all time.

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