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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Added to the terrors of flood and darkness was that of fire. In the wild
rush for places of safety that followed the first warning of the danger
from the bursting levees, lamps were toppled over, electric wires were
crossed and soon flames were mounting high in many sections of the city.

Representative H. S. Bigelow introduced a bill in the legislature to
appropriate $100,000 for the flood sufferers in Ohio, the money to be
handled under the direction of the Governor.

With no change in the number of reported dead in this city, estimates on
Wednesday placed the probable dead at from one hundred to one hundred
and fifty. Columbus was still being drenched and torn by flood waters of
the Scioto and Olentangy Rivers. The scene of devastation on the west
side was partly made visible to residents of other sections of the city
for the first time in two days. The isolation of the western section
again became real when the last remaining bridge gave way before the
torrents.

Numerous persons who were considered conservative asserted that they saw
scores of bodies float down stream and dozens of persons carried away in
their houses.

Miss Esther Eis, rescued from her home on the west side, said she saw
the house with George Griffin, wife and seven children collapse and
disappear, and another house containing John Way, wife and five
children, break up in the flood.

Besides the actual tragedies that were enacted in connection with the
flood the most exciting incident occurred at the announcement that the
storage dam, several miles north of the city, had broken, sending its
great flood to augment that of the Scioto River.

The scene that followed was one of wild panic in all parts of the city.
Patrolmen, soldiers and citizens in automobiles, tooting horns, ringing
gongs and calling through megaphones a warning to every one to seek
safety in the higher parts of the east side, sent thousands in flight,
while many, stunned by the supposed impending disaster, collapsed from
fear or gave way to hysteria.

It was more than an hour before the report was officially denied. Police
officials assert that the report was made to them by persons connected
with the military end of the patrols.

City officials said that the storage dam was holding fast against the
millions of gallons of water that were being poured against it, and they
expressed confidence that it would continue to do so despite the great
pressure upon it.

The Governor telegraphed the War Department at Washington, asking that
50,000 tents and 100,000 rations be made available for use and
distribution by the Ohio National Guard.

Governor Cox also sent out appeals for aid to the Governors of all the
border States of Ohio, including Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Michigan,
Indiana and Kentucky. Tents and provisions were badly needed, according
to the Governor's appeal.

After working all night in the Adjutant-General's office in the State
House, officers of the Ohio National Guard reported that they had
succeeded in assembling 3,500 militiamen, ready for service in the flood
districts.

Mobilized at all points of the state, companies and regiments of the
Ohio military force started at daybreak on Wednesday for the stricken
cities and towns as soon as arrangements for their transportation, the
most serious problem confronting the militia headquarters, could be
arranged. The relief which they carried was held back by the lack of
railroad facilities everywhere.

THE RELIEF OF THE VICTIMS

Howard Elting, president of the Chicago Association of Commerce,
telegraphed Governor Cox that citizens of Chicago were raising a relief
fund for flood sufferers.

"I am pleased to state," the telegram said, "that $100,000 will be
placed at the disposal of Ohio through the American Red Cross Society."

The Senate passed the Lowry Bill making appropriation for the relief of
the flood sufferers, but increased the amount to $500,000.

The action was taken in response to the following message from the
Governor:

"The flood disaster that has befallen our state is of such magnitude in
loss of life and human suffering that I respectfully urge upon your
honorable body the importance and propriety of making an appropriation
for the succor of those in distress.

"May I further suggest that it be of such size and made with such
dispatch as to reflect the great heart and resource of our
commonwealth?"

THE EXTENT OF THE DISASTER

On Thursday it was apparent that the part of the city between Central
and Sandusky Avenues was almost wiped out, and estimates of the death
toll of the flood in this city ran into the hundreds.

It was not until Thursday when the waters began to recede, and after two
nights of horror, during which hundreds of people clung to the
housetops, while others sought safety in trees, that the fact dawned
upon the inhabitants that their city had been visited by as great a
calamity perhaps as that which had fallen upon the Miami Valley.

The bodies of 200 persons lay huddled in the United Brethren Church on
Avondale Avenue, according to O. H. Ossman, an undertaker, who explored
the flood district in a rowboat.

He said this report was made to him by a man who said he had been able
to reach the building and look through the windows. Police who sought to
confirm the story were unable to reach the church because of the
current.

Ossman said nineteen bodies had been taken to his undertaking rooms and
that he has been asked to be prepared to care for sixty-nine other
bodies. He said he counted fully two hundred bodies in wreckage on West
Park Avenue.

Members of searching parties who were able to explore the west side of
the city, south of Broad Street, for the first time reported that that
section was a scene of vast desolation for a great area, much of it
being still under water.

The names of more than a half hundred persons were placed under the
caption "known dead," while the list of probable dead was too great to
be collated at that time. The number of missing and unaccounted for, it
was said, would reach far into the hundreds.

An Associated Press operator, who was marooned for hours in the flood
after it broke early Tuesday, reached the Columbus office Thursday after
having traveled by a circuitous route covering more than forty-five
miles in order to get into the main portion of the city.

He saw more than a score of bodies washed through the flood, and said
that house after house was carried away in the flood. Many of the small
frame cottages were wrenched to pieces by the currents and their
occupants thrown into the water to be seen no more.

It was believed that many bodies would be found at the Sandusky Street
bridge or lodged against such part of it as was left in the river at
that point. Further exploration of that part of the west side was begun
Thursday afternoon.

Because she had no home after she was rescued from the flood district,
Miss Florence P. Shaner and William G. Wahlenmaier were married. They
had intended being married in May. The girl was rescued by Wahlenmaier.
Her mother was drowned and their home swept away.

STORIES OF THE HORROR

Other men who had ventured into the flood district told corresponding
stories of awful loss of life. To add to the horrors of the situation
reports reached the State House that the buildings in the flood-swept
district were being looted by men in rowboats. To meet this emergency
and to better patrol the west side, which is under martial law, Governor
Cox ordered Troop B of the National Guard to patrol the ruined section
of the city. It was believed the cavalrymen could cover more territory
than foot soldiers.

As the waters receded the militia guarded the west side under
arrangements made between the Adjutant-General's department and Chairman
Nass of the Columbus Relief Committee.

Hundreds of people were still marooned in flooded homes, their rescue up
to that time being impossible because of the swift current of the
river. Rescued people in dire straits were brought to the City Hall in a
stream all day, where people by the hundreds waited to obtain news of
missing relatives and friends.

Families were separated, and men, women and children stood night and day
at the edge of the water waiting for the flood to subside that they
might reach abandoned homes.

The body of a man was suspended in a tree near Glenwood Avenue, beyond
reach of the rescuing parties. Other bodies were among debris washed up
on the edge of the waters in the southwest end of the city. Near this
debris were two submerged street cars.

Many of the refugees were in state institutions on the high ground at
the west end. The water fell several feet and some of the streets
inundated could be traversed, but in the lowlands, where it was feared
the greater number of dead would be found, it was several days before a
thorough search could be instituted.

Many of the refugees were in a pitiable condition when rescued. They
were benumbed by the cold and suffering from hunger and exposure.

FOUR BORN AS OTHERS DIE

Colonel D. N. Oyser, an attache of the city sanitary department,
reported that two truckloads of bodies were removed from one point on
the west side.

The cold wave which struck the section Wednesday night caused many to
freeze, lose their grip, and drop into the water.

[Illustration: Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
Part of the residential section of Fremont, Ohio, flooded. The water
reached to the second story of the houses]

[Illustration: Copyright by George Grantham Bain.
Carrying on the work of rescuing Dayton flood sufferers from their
houses in the boats made for the purpose at the National Cash Register
Factory]

With military glasses rescuers standing on the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad near Center Avenue could see several dead forms lying on the
roof of a building to the east.

Four babies were reported to have been born in a school house on the
hilltop.

According to those who invaded the stricken district, the churches, big
state institutions and storerooms in the hilltop section were crowded
with refugees. They tell stories of indescribable horrors.

Former Mayor George S. Marshall, who was in telephone communication with
Cecil Randall, his law partner, said that Mr. Randall estimated the
death toll at several hundreds. Throngs of excited groups of people from
the flood-stricken section of the city who were crowded into the
temporary rescue quarters asserted that the estimate of Mr. Randall was
not exaggerated.

Neither the extent of the awful tragedies enacted during the sweeping
away of homes nor the exact death tolls could be known for days until
the mass of wreckage, houses and uprooted trees which were strewn on the
level lowlands south of the city were uncovered. This mass of debris was
under several feet of water, with swift currents running in many
directions.

Many of those rescued told of escaping from their homes by fractions of
minutes, just before the rushing waters swept their homes away and
crushed them like eggshells against bridges. Scores of entire families,
these people assert, were swept down with their houses in the swift
current.

Every available inch of space in the Columbus State Hospital for the
Insane and Mt. Carmel Hospital on the hilltop was occupied by refugees.

Fire Chief Lauer, who was marooned on the hilltop beyond the flooded
section, reaching that point of safety in his automobile just before the
waters swept the lowlands, said that he saw scores of people standing on
their porches as the waters swept down and that he could not see how
scarcely any of them escaped.

After two nights of horror, during which hundreds clung to housetops
calling for help until their voices gave way, while dozens perched in
the branches of trees, many were still beyond the reach of rescuers.

ORDERS TO SHOOT LOOTERS

J. W. Gaver, Justice of the Peace at Briggsdale, swore in several
deputies and armed them, with instructions to shoot down all looters.

Relief trains from Marysville and London, bearing food and clothing,
relieved the situation in the refugee quarters on the hilltop, where
hundreds of homeless were waiting news from relatives.

Relief work was directed toward rescuing two hundred and fifty from the
marooned plant of the Sun Manufacturing Company, where they had been
imprisoned for two days without food or heat. One boat which got within
hailing distance before it was stopped by the swirling current was
informed that conditions were terrible.

With a blinding snowstorm and the temperature falling, gnawed by hunger
and suffering from the cold, the thousands of flood sufferers of the
state faced the uncertainties which the freezing temperature was adding
to their plight.

Although some of the early morning reports said flood waters were
receding slowly in some of the flooded sections there was scarcely a
perceptible change in the flood height. In other places, even though
receding, the water was still of such height as to maroon the sufferers,
many of whom were suffering from exposure which followed their clinging
throughout the night to some points of vantage above the murky waters.
All were facing the chilly winds, blinding rain, sleet and snow.

Governor Cox issued a proclamation declaring a holiday in all districts
flooded in Ohio for the next ten days. This was done to protect
negotiable paper that might be subject to presentation.

Hundreds of the refugees harbored in the various relief stations and in
private homes just outside of the flooded district were separated from
relatives, and many of them believed that lost sons or daughters,
fathers or mothers had perished.

The authorities were fearful of looting in the flood district and the
militia, under strict orders, in several cases arrested rescue workers
and interfered with their work, suspecting them of looting. A large
quantity of supplies was transported to the flood district by automobile
and rail, and the refugees were made comfortable as fast as they could
be released from the grip of the waters.

RECOVERING THE DEAD

Thursday's bodies were recovered from jams of driftwood that had piled
up along the shallow shores of the flood. All of them were badly
mutilated and in several cases identification was difficult. The
authorities organized a squad of men to cover the entire inundated area
in the search of bodies. Up to date fifty-one known dead had been
reported.

Hundreds of those whose homes were in the flooded district, but who were
marooned in the business section of the city, away from their families,
were able to get to the flood section Thursday by a circuitous route
about twenty-five miles long. All manner of vehicles and pedestrians
crowded the road throughout the day, and at the end of the way pathetic
reunions of families separated since Tuesday took place in the muddy,
flood-swept streets.

Daniel A. Poling, general secretary of the Ohio Christian Endeavor
Society, issued an appeal to the 160,000 Christian Endeavorers in the
state, urging them to forward contributions to state headquarters.

West Columbus remained virtually under martial law. Militia companies on
duty were ordered to shoot looters on sight. Thousands of curious people
and those with friends and relatives in the flooded districts were kept
out of the west side by police and troopers. The city relief station, at
the city hall, and the newspapers maintained and compiled lists of the
rescued, as well as lists of the dead.

By Friday order was being rapidly evolved out of chaos, and missing
loved ones were being accounted for by hundreds. Ample shelter and food
were being provided for the thousands of homeless.

Flood waters drained off from the devastated districts, railroad service
was slowly resumed and telegraph and telephone wires were being
restrung.

[Illustration: MAP SHOWING ONE OF THE CIRCUITOUS ROUTES BY WHICH NEWS OF
THE FLOOD WAS CARRIED TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD]

GOVERNOR COX INDEFATIGABLE

For three days Governor Cox tirelessly accomplished the work of a dozen
men, laboring from daylight to long past midnight to aid the
unfortunates of Ohio. His hand guided everything done in the work of
rescue and on Friday he turned his attention to new problems of
preventing epidemics, safeguarding life and property, relieving the
sufferings of surviving flood victims and the care of the dead.

The hero of the Dayton disaster, John A. Bell, the telephone official
who, marooned in a business block had been keeping Governor Cox informed
every half hour of conditions in the stricken city and delivering orders
through boatmen who rowed to his window, called the State House at
daybreak and greeted the Executive with a cheery "Good morning,
Governor. The sun is shining in Dayton."

But sunshine gave way to a blizzard like a snowstorm later in the day
and the reports coming from Bell were less cheering as the day advanced.

On Friday the Governor seized the railways to insure passage of relief
trains and to keep sightseers and looters away from the afflicted
municipalities.

The entire military force of Ohio was on duty in the flooded districts,
which included practically the entire state. Because of the interrupted
communications headquarters had not been able to keep fully in touch
with the movements of all the troops. The officers in command in most
cases had to determine routes and procure their own transportation.
Under the most difficult conditions they uniformly showed both energy
and ingenuity in reaching their destination.

Estimates of the flood death list in Columbus continued to range from
fifty to five hundred, although these figures represented largely
opinions of officials on duty in the flood zone. The efforts of the
authorities were directed almost entirely to relieving the suffering of
those marooned in houses in the territory under water, and until all of
these had been rescued the search for the dead did not begin in earnest.
The waters receded slowly on Friday and the swirling currents abated a
trifle, allowing the rescue boats a wider area of activity.

ORGANIZING RELIEF

George F. Unmacht, civil service clerk, connected with the
quartermaster's department of the United States army, stationed at
Chicago, arrived in Columbus Friday to assist in directing the
distribution of supplies. Rations for 300,000 arrived together with
tents for 20,000 persons; 100 hospital tents, 400 stoves, 29,000
blankets, 8,900 cots, 100 ranges.

Officers at Columbus were ordered to report at Fort Wayne, Cincinnati,
Youngstown and Hamilton, while a hospital corps was sent to the Columbus
barracks.

The Governor's attention on Friday was devoted largely to organization
of the work of relief. He received telegrams notifying him of
collections of more than $250,000. A New York newspaper had sent
$150,000 subscribed to a fund it raised. Word was received that the
Chicago Chamber of Commerce had raised $200,000, half of which had been
forwarded to Ohio. Judge Alton B. Parker subscribed $5,000 and James J.
Hill $5,000. A thousand dollars was sent from Walkerville, Ontario.

Governor Dunne wired that a bill appropriating $100,000 for Ohio flood
sufferers had been introduced in the Illinois Legislature, while
Governor Osborne telegraphed that the Michigan Assembly had appropriated
$20,000.

Colonel Myron T. Herrick, of Cleveland, Ambassador to France, cabled his
deep anxiety over the Ohio disaster, and Governor Cox in reply asked him
to call a meeting of the Ohio Society in Paris and wire funds, saying
the losses exceeded the San Francisco earthquake.

The Ohio Society of Georgia wired the Governor it was sorry and it too
was invited to show how much it was sorry.

HUNGRY REFUGEES SEIZE FOOD

The need for relief was indicated when a company of telephone linemen
working outside of Columbus had their supplies taken from them by hungry
flood refugees.

Governor Cox recalled some of his former comments on the need of
expenditures for the National Guard. "The National Guard," he said, "has
saved itself. Its efficiency has been a revelation to me." In the
organization so promptly effected by the Governor the moment the floods
came, his most efficient aid came from Adjutant-General Speaks and the
National Guard officers, and with the Guard the work of rescue and of
maintaining order was made possible. The officers and men performed
every duty faithfully.

Martial law prevailed in most of the stricken cities and the soldiers
prevented the looting of the abandoned houses and cared for the
refugees.

Colonel Wilson, of the Paymaster's Department, was made financial
officer as well as treasurer of the relief funds. Under his direction
and the Governor's supervision the Ohio relief commission prepared for a
War Department audit, as is required by the Red Cross Society. The
Governor demanded that there should be but one relief committee in the
state, and to that end the local committees formed were subordinate to
the state commission.

INCIDENTS OF HEROISM

The work of rescue brought out many striking incidents of personal
heroism.

From two o'clock Tuesday afternoon until nearly nightfall Wednesday
Charles W. Underwood, a carpenter of this city, held two babes in his
arms while he clung to the branch of a tree near the Greenlawn Cemetery,
where he had been carried fully a mile by the current. One babe was his
own, the other belonged to a neighbor, and as he clung to them he saw
his own twelve-year-old daughter on another limb of the same tree weaken
from exposure and die, her frail body swaying limply as it hung over the
branch. He also saw a woman refugee in the same tree weaken and fall
into the swirling waters. Underwood and the babes were finally rescued.

Two hundred and thirty-three souls marooned in the building of the Sun
Manufacturing Company succeeded in sending out a note by messenger,
praising the work of John Brady, who, with a skiff, after his home was
swept away, rescued two hundred men, women and children and brought them
to the Sun plant.

"Track out at Columbus because of floods," was the message that Albert
E. Dutoit, a Hocking Valley Railway engineer, read when his train was
stopped Wednesday at Walbridge, near Toledo. His heart gave a bound,
for he knew his family must be threatened. He detached his engine from
the train and started on his race with death. Like mad he shot his
engine across the country between there and Columbus. All night
Wednesday he tried to get through the military lines and succeeded on
Thursday. He induced men in motor boats to rescue his family. In a few
more moments, he had his eight-months-old baby in one arm with the other
around the waist of his wife. The reunion brought tears of sympathy to
the eyes of the rescuers.

Mrs. Emil Wallace, living southwest of the city, in the lowlands, ran
toward a hill when she saw the onrushing waters. She reached safety just
as the water was up to her neck. Her home was submerged.

A street car was washed a quarter of a mile away from the track. The
conductor and half a dozen passengers were drowned like rats in a trap
before they could get out of the car.

Two unknown men lost their lives while trying to save a twelve-year-old
girl from a raft floating near Greenlawn Avenue. On horseback the men
fought desperately against the swift current of the flood until at last
they were carried away.

Nearly one hundred babies were born in the flood district and in the
refuge camps between Tuesday morning and Saturday. In the majority of
cases neither the mothers nor the babies received any medical attention.
Many of the babies died from exposure.

As the sun broke through a fringe of clouds Saturday morning it looked
down upon scenes of utter devastation in the stricken west side of this
city, where a mighty torrent of water had rendered what was a prosperous
and happy community of 40,000 souls into a place of death, want and
disaster.

SCENES OF PATHOS

The scenes were full of human pathos. Torn bodies, disfigured almost
beyond recognition, were being dug from debris. Whole families, marooned
for four long days and nights in the upper stories of houses that had
escaped as if by miracle, many of them without food or water and in fear
of constant death by flood or flame, were being reached by rescuers.

Many of those rescued were in a critical condition from the long hours
they had spent in the bitter cold--their clothing soaked by the
incessant rainfall of three days and nights and no fuel or bedding with
which to combat their fearful condition. The water was subsiding
materially and the work of rescue was thus made easier.

The work of the searching parties in the flooded district increased the
list of bodies recovered from the water to sixty-one. All of these were
lodged in the temporary morgue, and most of them were identified.

Accurate estimates of the dead were still impossible. Safety Director
Bargar said not more than one hundred had been drowned. Coroner Benkert
asserted that the loss of life would reach 200, while former Mayor
Marshall, commanding the rescue workers in the southern end of the
flooded district held that both estimates were too high.

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