Sunbury American. [volume] (Sunbury, Pa.) 1848-1879, 1874-07-31
THE GREAT FLOOD.

The Pittsburg Evening Telegraph far
nishes additional particulars of the great
flood which wrought such terrible destruc-
ton of life and property in that city and
Allegheny on Sunday night.
From the Evening Telegraph yesterday 3l5 p. NJ
a FEARFUL HORROR
Allegheny City and Pittsburg were last
night visited by the most fearful disaster
that has ever occurred to them. All others
pale into ignifcance-the great fire
the Arsenal calamity-the flood of '}2-all
lose the grandeur of their terribleness when
compared with the fearful sweep of the
Storm King that devastated portions of our
two cities last night, and carried over q
hundred of men, women and children, in
an instant almost, from the happy scenes
of their Sunday evening homes to the dread
uncertainties Of eternity.
God pity the victims to this fearful dis
aster, and comfort the stricken wrecks of
homes they leave behind. But alas in
some cases there are no homes left. Father,
mother and children, with all their house
hold goods, swept away. The mind can
not take in the fearful stroke. You who
are reading the accounts of it in your quiet
homes, have no conception of its horrors.
Only those who have this morning visited
the scenes of the flood and shrunk back
stricken by the details of death and des-
truction that met their eyes in the dead
bodies of men, women and children, or re-
allied the physical force of the flood in the
wrecked and splintered dwcllings-lately
the happy Sunday homes of the dead lying
around-can conceive the Almighty power
that has forced this elimination of horrors
Whole families have been swept out of
existence. In ole case a weak babe is all
that remains of the hOusehOld-in others a
gray-haircd father or mOther-or again a
stricken wife with a helpless family, or a
despairing husband bereft of all. In Ale
gheny we hear of father, mother and nine
children that have gone, leaving not Il trace
behind Of their family existence.
PARTICULARS.
The torrents Of water rushed furiouslv
down the streams i'll the upper part of Al
legheny, notably in Butchers Run, sweep
ing in its course houses and temporary
buildings of every character, and over
wEelming and drowning a number of per-
sons. There was a succession of flashes of
lightning seldom, if ever witnessed i'll these
parts. The heavens were lighted 50 that
they were as clearas day, and continuous
glare of lurid flame preceded and unbroken
peal of thunder that shook our most solid
and substantial buildings.
The entire fiat from Mason avenue to
Troy Hill, as far out as Gerst's brewery,
was flooded.
ALLEGHENY.
Allegheny is all excitement on account
of the great flood of last night. Thousands
are hocking to the scenes of the disaster :;
men are laboring to eXtricate the dead
bodies, and up to one O'Clock to-day sixty
two had been found, one hundred are re-
ported missing, and the search is being
continued, amid the widest excitement.
O'HARA STREET.
The scene on this street beggarS descrip-
ton, and can only be realized by being
seen. Whole blocks Of building are jammed
together in one mass of destruction. Here
many lives are supposed to have been lost,
and the work of extricating the bodies
was being rapidly pushed forward. Not
less than three thousand people were at
this place at an early hour this morning,
and the utmost excitement prevailed.