Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1874-05-20
white faces aud imploring hands to Heaven,
and to 1nd's mercy leave their fate.

| white faces aud imploring hands to Heaven,
and to God s mercy leave their fate.
1.-The great ghastly horror of that dawn |
| shrink from contemplating. The shrieks Of
| woman and children, the dumb, helpless con-
| sternaton of strong men, the roar OF the rush
| ing waters, the crash of timbcrs, the wrlthlng
gurgliug and drowning of the victims as they
| were seized up wbirlcd onward, crushed aud
| swallowed up iu the flood, beggar description.
Here was no slowly rising stream, driving Its VIC
tins inch by inch from floor to floor till they walt
ed on the roof to be delivered from the encroach-
| ing tide nor was it conhagratlon driving the
| terrorstricken inhabitants from house to house
and from street to street until 1t had LAID city
10 ashes These are caamities which, appall-
ing though they be- give at least a sign OF warn
ips aud chance of escape. But here was a
village that woke with overwhelming destruc-
tiuu on It's head that left them hardly time to
pray before II swallowed them up ln very
hurlyburly Of death The water they had
stored up and held back that it might turn
their wheels aud do their bidding had risen
against its masters, and with the angry roar OF
au nsurgent mub had come down upon them
without any thought of mercy.
"Aud the tremendous power OF this vast
volume of water can hardly be conceived. The
great stones in the dam and the foundations OF
buildings were tossed about by it like pebbles
Il seized deep-rooted trees aud whirled them
out Of the ground as man might t1lrt halt
planted shrub from its place. 1t plunged
against massive walls aud as they lottered aud
fell, it caught great blocks OF masonry and
flung them far and wide ln the track otlts fury.
1t burrowed under the heavy boilers that with
derrickS and jackscrcws and powerful machinery
had been slowly aud laboriously set IN their
~, lya fanth md
using them as battering-rams, carried them
alott in its arms with great sweep OF destruc-
ton aud death as it went. 1t lifted buildings
from their foundations, and crushing them TO-
gether, scattered their fragments, iron and
mortar and brick and stone, all through the
fair valley it travcrsed. The boarding houses
of the operatives aud the residences OF the
capitalists. it pluckcd up and whired together
in a drifting undslinguiShable MASS. 1t gath
cred reinforcemeuts for its work as 1t swept
along; it took bridges iu its arms and dashed
them down upon other bridges, crushing and
DESTROYING them: It rolled before it on its great
curling trout large blocks Of stone, masses OF
timber and iron, which 1t seemed to handle as
weapons of destruction, dashlng them down up
on whatever stood in It's path.
"a more awful spectacle than that of this
devouring wave thirty feet high with streamers
of spray above it, and all the tokens OF the
death aud destruction it had caused plunglug
along with it, and with the roar of an earth
quake accompanying it could hardly be lmagln.
cd. It's work in Williamsburg, the first village
it stuck, was quickly done. Lying there IN
the narrow valley, the food fairly lifted up that
part of it which lay in its track and bounced
i, in air. From the point where it first struck
the southeastern portion Of the village 1t made
almost clean sweep. With all the gathered
debris Of its first capture, great mass OF 1oat-
ing timber and trees, fragments OF building and
bridges, and helpless human beings, struggling
and drowning ir the midst, the flood rushed
on.
The disaster Which the novelist has made
familiar through his powerful narrative, occur
red at Sheffield England, on the / lth of March
1864. The reservoir, containing one hnDdrcd
and fourteen million cubic t.et OF water, cover
ing seventy.six acres Of ground, gave way, and
the food rushed down the gorge formed by the
Soxley and Stanuiugton hills into the town OF
Sheffield Twelve miles of country were laid
waste TWO hundred and fifty human beings
perishing in the writer's, and vast amount OF
paoperty being destroyed. In this case the
embankment was eighty-hVe feet high aud forty
feet thick, and was supposed to be constructed
on the most approved scientific principles but
as the result showed, it was insufficient and
badly constructed. An even more notable case
than this occurred April 80, 1902, when the
dam Estrecho dc Rieutes, near Lorea, SPAN,
gave way and the waters poured over large
tract of country, drowning six hundred and
eight people, and destroying property valued
at seven million dollars. Iu the United States
the Mill river disaster is the first of the kind
that has occurred.
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