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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Ample telegraph equipment was installed in the Beckel House. Thousands
of telegrams remained undelivered, and it was still impossible for the
telegraph companies even to attempt delivery. The line of citizens
waiting in front of the Western Union's temporary office, to ask for
messages from friends, extended during the morning a full block.

The Bell Telephone system promised partial restoration of service by
Tuesday. Its plant manager, John A. Bell, complained of his linemen
having been impeded by refusal of guardsmen to honor the military
passes. This was called to the attention of Brigadier General Wood,
commanding the Ohio Guard, and relief was given.

Practically no newspapers had been received here since Tuesday and the
people of Dayton grew very anxious to learn of conditions in other
cities. News of the death of J. P. Morgan first reached the public
through a bulletin posted by a representative of the Associated Press.
Later the Dayton _News_, whose plant was inundated, put a two-page paper
on the street in which a few details of the death of the financier were
printed.

Impressed and volunteer laborers were put to work Monday refilling the
broken levees. Removal of dead animals was the most pressing work of
sanitation.

Major Thomas L. Rhoads, President Wilson's aide and personal
representative in charge of sanitary work, said that the situation was
quite encouraging; that hospital facilities so far were ample; no
epidemics of disease were in evidence and in two weeks there would be
substantial relief, although it would require two months to remove the
dirt and debris.

WOMEN SHOVEL IN STREETS

Monday for the first time, offensive odors came from the mud and slime
that was shovelled into the streets by householders and storekeepers. In
this work men, women and children were engaged. Wives of prominent
citizens were seen with shovel and hoe, some of them wearing their
husbands' trousers and rubber boots, doing as best they could the work
of men.

On Monday, John H. Patterson, chairman of the Citizens' Relief
Committee, issued the following statement:

"Our committee has now at its disposal all the food and clothing
necessary. Money, however, is required to put our city in condition to
prevent the outbreak of diseases and to rehabilitate the thousands, many
of whom have lost their homes entirely and all of whom have lost their
household and personal effects.

"The committee sends an urgent appeal to the citizens of the United
States for the necessary funds. All contributions should be sent direct
to W. F. Bippus, treasurer of the relief committee."

MILLIONAIRES IN THE BREAD-LINE

In the bread-line on Monday was Eugene J. Parney, a multi-millionaire,
whose gifts to charity have been very large and who recently included
$25,000 to the Y. M. C. A. of this city. The day after the flood he was
offering $1,000 for enough wood alcohol to heat malted milk for his
infant grandchild. Monday he was no more successful in buying
provisions. He appeared with a basket on his arm, rubbed elbows with
those nearest in the motley line and apparently none was more grateful
than he when his basket was filled with beans, potatoes, canned
vegetables, rice and other staples. He was eager to pay for his
supplies, but money is refused at the supply depots. It was arranged to
change this system on Tuesday to enable those well able to pay to do
so.

Fred B. Patterson, only son of John H. Patterson, stopped work in the
morgue at his father's factory long enough to tell for the first time of
the part he took in the rescue work. Like his sister Dorothy, who worked
as a waitress feeding refugees, young Patterson was doing the things
that many poor men had avoided.

ORVILLE WRIGHT'S ESCAPE

Orville Wright, the aeroplane builder, and his family, who had been
marooned in the west side, reported to relief headquarters on Monday.
The flood stopped just short of wiping out of existence the priceless
models, records, plans and drawings--all in the original--of the Wright
brothers, who gave the airship to the world.

Out in West Dayton live the Wrights--Orville, his father, Bishop Wright,
and Miss Katherine Wright, the sister, in a small, unpretentious frame
house. Orville Wright and his father and sister were in the old
homestead when the flood swept in.

The aged father was placed in a boat, but instead of conveying him to a
place of safety, the boatman carried him to a house nearby where he was
marooned until the waters subsided three days later. Orville Wright and
his sister escaped to safety on an auto truck, being carried through
four feet of water.

In fleeing, however, the inventor of the aeroplane was compelled to
abandon the small factory adjoining the homestead in which were stored
all of the originals from which the plans for the air craft were
perfected. Had these gone, there would have remained nothing of the
priceless data save what exists in the brain of Orville Wright.

At the height of the flood a house adjoining the factory took fire.
There were no means to fight the flames. For several hours the factory
was in peril, but a special providence protected it and it came out of
both flood and fire unscathed.

"We were lucky," said Orville Wright, whimsically, on Monday. "It is the
irony of fate that at the critical moment I was not able to get away
with my folks on one of my own machines. However, we came through all
right and there doesn't seem to be anything more to be said."

Just one week after the coming of the deluge Governor Cox entered his
home city for the first time, accompanied by several of the members of
the Ohio Flood Relief Committee.

Governor Cox praised Mr. Patterson for his invaluable part in the relief
work. "Mr. Patterson is the one man who is in the eye of America more
than any one other man," said the Governor.

Mr. Patterson, after he returned Tuesday night in company with H. E.
Talbott, chief engineer, from a tour of sections of Dayton that were
swept by the flood, issued a statement in which he said:

"Dayton is facing one of the gravest problems that any city of the world
ever faced and we want the world to know we need money and food for our
stricken people."

In speaking of a tentative plan to ask the Federal Government for a
loan of from $20,000,000 to $40,000,000 to be used in reconstruction
work, Mr. Patterson said:

"At a meeting of bankers and officials of the building associations this
evening it was decided to make an appeal for Federal aid. The banks and
building associations have $60,000,000 worth of assets which they will
put up as collateral. It may be deemed advisable to ask the Government
to give us some financial assistance. We feel that the disaster is an
emergency which would justify extraordinary action on the part of
Congress."

Since Sunday more than $750,000 in cash was received from banks in
Cincinnati to replace damaged money in local banks which remained closed
until April 8th.

DEATH AND PROPERTY LOSS

Mr. Talbott estimated that the property loss in Montgomery County
totaled at least $150,000,000. He declared that one manufacturing
company alone had lost half a million dollars.

Although several carloads of provisions were received on Tuesday,
officials in charge of relief work stated that the food situation was a
matter of grave concern. "We must have rations for more than 100,000
people for an indefinite period," Mr. Patterson declared.

A carload of automobile tires, contributed by an Akron rubber company
for use in relief work, arrived on Tuesday.

One of the great losses sustained from the flood was that which befell
the public library. An inspection of the institution disclosed the fact
that the children's library, the medical library and the reference
library had been wiped out of existence. Included in the loss were all
the public and official accounts and copies of the newspapers dating
from the first issues, back in 1822, none of which could be replaced.

County Coroner John McKemy, who in the week following the flood handled
nearly one hundred bodies, said that at least twenty-five bodies were
disposed of before he was released from his imprisonment by the flood.
He estimated that the number of lives lost from the flood in Dayton
exceeded two hundred.

THE TASK OF REBUILDING

So day followed day in the recuperation of Dayton; but, looking ahead,
it was evident to the magnificent corps of expert men in charge of the
work that months must elapse before all Daytonians could again live in
their own homes. There were 15,000 residences to plaster and paper
before they could be occupied. There were 4,500 houses to build
foundations under, to straighten, re-roof, put in doors and windows,
rebuild chimneys and make other repairs before their owners could move
in again. There were 2,000 houses to raze and new structures to be
built.

The Citizens' Relief Committee, on advices from engineers, decided that
this reconstruction work would require four months, even if building
material could be obtained promptly.

So far as the business and industrial buildings were concerned, it was
estimated by architects who looked over the different premises that it
would require eight months before repair work and rebuilding could be
accomplished. In the interim business was done in whatever premises were
available.

Thousands of men were employed, together with many teams of horses, and
work was pushed to the utmost in all departments. Surveys of the damage
done were made and large quantities of material were ordered by
telegraph, to be shipped immediately.

Generations must come and go before the Dayton flood will be forgotten,
and standing out in bright contrast with all else there will perhaps
remain longest the inspiring picture of the energy and fortitude with
which the stricken residents set about the retrievement of their city
from the devastation of the angry waters.

CHAPTER VI

DAYTON: "THE CITY OF A THOUSAND FACTORIES"

SURVIVOR OF SIX FLOODS--ESTABLISHED BY REVOLUTIONARY
SOLDIERS--PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS--OTHER OF DAYTON'S FEATURES OF
INTEREST--A CITY OF CIVIC PRIDE--"A THOUSAND FACTORIES"--ITS
SUCCESS.

Dayton has stood in the shadow of disaster from flood ever since its
foundation. No less than six times previous to the present inundation
have the rivers which flow through it left their accustomed courses and
brought death and destruction of property upon the town. The first of
these floods occurred in 1805, the very year that Dayton was
incorporated as a town. The sixth was in 1898 and the others in the
years 1847, 1863, 1866 and 1886.

The site of the present city was purchased in 1795 by a group of
Revolutionary soldiers and laid out as a town in the following year by
one of them, who named it after Jonathan Dayton, a Jerseyman who had
fought in the Revolution and who later served in Congress and the United
States Senate. It became the county seat of Montgomery County in 1803
and received its city charter in 1841, something more than a score of
years after the opening of the Miami Canal gave a boom to its growth and
prosperity.

[Illustration: Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
Crowds at the end of one of the streets which was turned into a racing
river. Many persons floating down on the debris were rescued by willing
hands as they neared this point]

[Illustration: Copyright by George Grantham Bain.
Even before the flood reached its height, the wood-working department of
the National Cash Register Factory was busily putting together
improvised boats that were afterwards of great value in rescuing
marooned residents from their flooded homes]

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

Within the city limits the waters of Wolf Creek, Stillwater and Mad
Rivers unite with those of the great Miami. The latter stream flows
through the city from north to south. As it reaches the corporation
limits at the north it sweeps to the westward and is joined by
Stillwater River a mile and a half from the court house. Then it takes
an easterly course for half a mile and is joined by the Mad River at a
point about half a mile from the court house.

The river then bends again to the west for more than half a mile and is
joined by Wolf Creek. Its course lies thereafter to the southeast. Great
bridges, some of them of great architectural beauty, cross all of these
streams. The Miami Canal takes water from the Mad River about two miles
northeast of the court house, runs parallel with the Mad River to its
confluence with the Miami and then runs southward to the city limits.

The city is regularly laid out, the street and house number plan being
arranged with arithmetical exactness. Main Street is the center of this
system and the house numbers begin from it or the point nearest it on
the streets that run east or west. For the streets running north and
south the house numbers begin on Third Street or the point nearest Third
Street. Main and Third Streets are respectively the dividing lines of
all streets crossing them.

SPLENDID PUBLIC BUILDINGS

The court house stands at Main and West Third Streets. Distances are
measured from it, and it is at the center of the scheme according to
which streets are laid out. Its original portion was modeled after the
Greek Parthenon and is built of rough white marble taken from quarries
in the vicinity. It is only one of the many buildings of which the city
is proud. Among others are the Steele High School, St. Mary's College,
Notre Dame Academy, Memorial Building, Arcade Building, Reibold
Building, post office, Algonquin Hotel, public library and the Y. M. C.
A. building.

There is also the Union Biblical Seminary and a publishing house
connected therewith. The Central Theological Seminary was established in
1908. Among charitable institutions are the Dayton State Hospital for
the Insane, Miami Valley and St. Elizabeth hospitals, the Christian
Deaconess', Widows' and Children's homes and the Door of Hope, a home
for girls. Just outside the city is the central branch of the National
Home for Disabled Soldiers. In addition to these buildings there are a
number of very handsome churches.

OTHER OF DAYTON'S FEATURES OF INTEREST

Dayton is on the Erie, the Dayton and Union and the Pittsburgh,
Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroads. There are one hundred and
twenty-five trains entering the city daily. The Union Station was opened
to the public in July, 1900, and cost, including tracks, $900,000. The
city has an area of ten and three-quarter square miles.

The Mayor, Treasurer, Auditor, Solicitor, and Board of Public Service,
of three members, are elected by popular election. The Board of Public
Safety, of two members, and the Board of Health, are appointed by the
Mayor and confirmed by Council. The City Council, composed of thirteen
members from ten wards, is elected by popular vote, for two years, each
member receiving an annual salary of $250. It is a legislative body
only.

The supply of water for the city is almost inexhaustible in quantity and
of absolute purity. In 1904 there were one hundred and thirty-three
miles of street mains, 1,300 fire hydrants and 15,503 service taps. The
Fire Department has a force of ninety men, fourteen engine-houses, fifty
horses maintained at a cost of $86,728.48, and with property worth
$375,000. A complete system of surface and underground sewerage, both
storm and sanitary, is provided. In 1904 there were sixty-seven and
nine-tenths miles of storm sewerage.

There are seven National Banks and two Savings and Trust Companies.
Dayton takes rank as foremost in building associations of any city of
its size in the country. A large number of the 20,000 or more homes in
the city have been built with the aid of these associations.

A potent force in the development of the city has been the electric
traction lines, of which Dayton has more than any other city in Ohio.
There are nine lines, with a total mileage of three hundred and
eighty-five miles, which radiate in all directions through the populous
and rich country of which Dayton forms the center. The city railway
lines, three in number, have a total mileage of nearly one hundred miles
and render excellent service.

The Dayton public school system has for many years enjoyed the
reputation of being one of the best school systems in the West.

Dayton had the first library incorporated in the state, one having been
established in 1805. The Public Library was opened in 1855 and is
supported by public taxation, having an income of $18,000 per annum.
There are five daily newspapers, each with weekly editions, besides
seventeen church and other publications. There are also three large
church publication houses.

The city hospitals include the St. Elizabeth Hospital, the Miami Valley
Hospital, and the Protestant Hospital, which has a large central
building known as the Frank Patterson Memorial of Operative Surgery, one
of the most complete buildings for its purpose in the United States. The
Dayton State Hospital for the Insane is maintained by the state. The
Hospital of the National Military Home which adjoins the city is the
largest military hospital in the world and has an average of 600
patients, all of whom are veteran volunteer soldiers of the Civil and
Cuban Wars.

A CITY OF CIVIC PRIDE

Dayton was early imbued with the spirit of civic pride and the results
are seen in a system of drives and parks. The streets are well built and
numerous good hard gravel roads radiate into the surrounding country, a
fertile farming region which abounds in limestone. The levee along the
Miami is made of hard gravel and is wide enough at the top to form a
foundation for a drive.

"A THOUSAND FACTORIES"

Dayton is sometimes known as "the City of a Thousand Factories," and
some of its varied industries are known throughout the world. Leading
these is, of course, the National Cash Register Company, which employs
something more than 7,000 men.

In addition to cash registers there are manufactured agricultural
machinery, clay-working machinery, cottonseed and linseed oil machinery,
railway cars, carriages and wagons, automobiles, flying machines, sewing
machines, paper, furniture, soap and tobacco. Almost every industrial
product finds a maker in this town. Barnum & Smith are the well known
manufacturers of street cars. There is the Davis Sewing Machine Company,
the Speedwell Automobile Company and many others. Water-power in
abundance is supplied from the Mad River.

Dayton is the fifth largest city in Ohio. The final abstract of the
Federal census for 1910 placed the population at 116,577, as compared
with 85,333 in 1900 and 61,220 in 1890.

With its industries so diversified, its banks and building associations
so strong and uniformly successful, and with its people so well
educated, it is one of the richest and most prosperous communities in
the Union.

CHAPTER VII

THE DEVASTATION OF COLUMBUS

THE RISING FLOOD--MOST OF THE CITY DARK--GREAT AREAS UNDER
WATER--THE MILITIA IN CONTROL--THE RELIEF OF THE VICTIMS--THE
EXTENT OF THE DISASTER--STORIES OF THE HORROR--ORDERS TO SHOOT
LOOTERS--RECOVERING THE DEAD--GOVERNOR COX INDEFATIGABLE--HUNGRY
REFUGEES SEIZE FOOD--INCIDENTS OF HEROISM--SCENES OF PATHOS--LOSS
BY DEATH AND OF PROPERTY--THE WORK OF RECONSTRUCTION.

At Columbus, on Tuesday night, March 25th, darkness settled down on a
swirling flood that covered large areas of the city. Thousands of
persons were separated from members of their families and were frantic
because they were unable to get into communication with their homes.

THE RISING FLOOD

Hundreds of fathers, sons, brothers, sisters and daughters had left
their homes on the west side of the city in the morning to go to work,
before the Scioto River had reached a flood stage. Rising suddenly, the
water cut them off from their homes and when night fell they only knew
that their homes were flooded and that the members of their families
were dependent for food and shelter on more fortunate neighbors.

Because the city was in darkness, only meager details of the condition
of the flood-marooned inhabitants were obtainable.

Wringing their hands, weeping and appealing vainly for help, scores of
girls crowded in as close to the water's edge in the darkness as state
troops and policemen on duty would allow them, but there was no chance
to cross the stream to their home district.

MOST OF THE CITY DARK

Owing to the high water, electric lights in the flooded district and a
part of the business section of the city were out, and the water supply
was cut off. The supply of gas was also cut off, with a view to
preventing explosions.

In Columbus the west side was practically wiped out, and the reported
loss of life ranged from a half dozen to 200. Houses were floating down
the river with people on their roofs. Several fires in the submerged
district added to the horrors. Refugees slept in public buildings, while
militia helped the police patrol the streets, which were in total
darkness.

It was estimated that over 10,000 persons were homeless on the west side
as a result of the flood and that at least 15,000 were living on the
second floors of their homes. Only about ten per cent of the street cars
were able to operate and steam railroad and suburban lines were tied up.

Damage amounting to $30,000 was done by fires in the west side during
the afternoon, which for a time threatened greater damage owing to the
water supply being cut off. Even had there been water, most of the
fire-fighting facilities were on the east side of the city and unable to
reach the section affected.

GREAT AREA UNDER WATER

Bridges connecting the west side with the eastern portion of Columbus
were swept away shortly after noon. Dozens of smaller bridges went down.
Hundreds of men were marooned in factories on the west side, and police
and National Guardsmen were making rescues in boats where it was
possible. All street car traffic was abandoned. Fifteen hundred homes
were flooded.

With a great roar the levee at the foot of Broad Street let go shortly
before eleven o'clock, sending down a deluge of water that swelled the
Scioto River and covered a great area. Several small buildings
collapsed. Just before the break the police ordered all persons in the
lowlands to leave their homes quickly and flee for high land. All fire
and police apparatus assisted in the work. The residents were told not
to stop for clothes or valuables.

The Sandusky Street levee also collapsed, permitting the water to wash
out a railroad embankment and pour into all the low districts between
the river and Sandusky Street. With water to the hubs, a horse-drawn
wagon galloped out West Broad Street filled with police, who shouted as
they went a warning to all to fly to the hills.

While being swept down the channel of the swollen Scioto River just as
darkness was gathering late in the day, a man, woman and child were
rescued from the roof of a house that had been torn from its foundation
by the flood. Two other children of the same family fell into the water
and were drowned.

THE MILITIA IN CONTROL

State troops at the order of Governor Cox patrolled the streets in the
flooded sections of the city and scores of automobiles were busy
carrying the suffering to higher ground.

Meantime, the rain which began Sunday night continued, at times
moderately and at other times in torrents. The fact that the water had
already destroyed several bridges and broken a levee gave cause for the
alarm that other levees might break and further damage result.

Because of the proportions of the flood, which washed out nearly every
bridge of steam and electric roads leading out of Columbus, nearly all
train service was annulled.

Floodgates were closed against all trains coming in or going out of
Columbus on all roads except the Norfolk and Western. A train on that
road practically swam into the Union Station at 9 P. M. after having
crept along through high waters for most of the run from Portsmouth to
Columbus.

During the day several trains on roads from the East were detoured
through Columbus over the Norfolk and Western, but this was discontinued
because of washed-out bridges between Columbus and Pittsburgh and other
points. Norfolk and Western officials said they had no assurance that
they would be able to operate any trains from here.

Ten solid miles of Pullman and other trains, including the Twentieth
Century Flyer, on the Pennsylvania Railroad, extended from Lima to
Lafayette, held up by a wash-out. Repairs allowed the trains to move on
about eleven o'clock.

In taking charge of the relief work Governor Cox issued an order
directing Adjutant-General John C. Speaks to call out the entire
National Guard of the state for duty in the flooded districts.

BRIDGES SWEPT AWAY

Bridges were swept away, barring those who would have fled to places of
safety. The rush of waters caught hundreds in their homes, and as the
darkness fell the scramble to escape became wild and foreboding. Those
who were able to do anything sent their appeals for aid to outlying
cities before the wires had absolutely failed.

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