The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1874-07-31
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in the darkness and horror of terrible
thunderstorm There the man who would
save his wife, the mother who would save
her children, could at least see the danger,
and could see the point of safety, if to reach
it was impossible. Here they could see
nothing, and rushed out as if bindfold into
what had been the streets of city, changed
in the dark into highways of destruction.
The gas-works even were upset, and the
dull light of the streets was turned into
| darkness. At Mill River there was breath
ing space between the villages. Here it
was one block Of houses, with the streets
turned into torrents all at once Then the
two raging streams, laden each with great
burdens of tmbers, met where Chestnut,
| Centre and O.liara streets come together
They came together with the heaped-up
debris in the fore front of each, nearly at
right angles. They were eight and ten feet
deep, but when they met upwent the water
in burst thirty feet high and down il
came over the double dam of hood.wood,
broke right across O'EIara street Mt rieht
angles, sweeping three houses side by side
utterly away, and tn m, ''ihank God ut las,
the worst had been reached" spread out in
to an open meadow, made for the river up
in the run, and dug out the sewer and burst
it to pieces. Here there was another sewer
leading to the river, and this it broke
through and sucked utterly dry before it
passed on to the Allegheny. where it at
last plunged into the river, swapping an
unlucky barge at the shore. 1t bored great
holes into the clay, which ii had scraped
bare of the rich red aluvium, and left be-
hind it in the fiat stocks oftimberI half buried
in mud, with two many dead hnman bodies
entangled and buried with the rest. The
path of this brief torrent, whose force was
spent in two hours is hardly like the seven
mile track of destruction in Massachusetts,
a sight worth coming to see. From its path
through to the middle of a city n greater
des tructiou might have been expected; yet
the loss in many is probably less, but of the
loss of life it cannot yet be said how great
it is.
Tonight los bodies in all have been re-
covered, some clustered together as the
seventy-five at the junction of the stream,
others scattered and buried in the heaps of
waste left by the flood, and yet there are
100 missing. What that means in city
who can tell? In the hurry and horror OF
the past two days missing may have meant
''absent" or 'strayed' as well as drowned"
but gangs of workmen who, guarded by the
militia, are digging and hauling away the
debris, find corpse after corpse, swollen,
now disfigured, too often past identification,
and how many have gone into the Allie
ghany and thence into the Ohio? One body
ut least belonging among the Dutch on
Butchers Run was picked up thirty miles
out IN the Ohio. To day there were score
OF funerals, and the temporary depository
for the unclaimed dead of Allegheny CITY
was empted. All along the track of the
Hood the or-knockers are tied I'D with
black, and tomorrow the last of the recog-
nized dead will be buried have spoken
thus far of Allegheny city only, because
| tlpra ha nff
The paths of the water to-day are an indie
scribable confusion. Imagine the low and
shapeess wooden huts of the Sixth Ward
upset, splintered, set one upon the other;
intensity the mud of that unhappy region
fifty-f1ld, and set 800 men at work with
spades and pickaxes, ropes, and hosting
cranes, seeking 100 dead, supposed to be
buried in twenty feet of debris, and stretca
out the picture over five miles of narrow
gorges, crammed with broken ,imbers piled
like jackstraws in unutterable confusion,
and with crowd of sight seers, you have
the track of the Allegheny city flood. In
cidents innumerable of individual heroism
and of the strange freaks of the water are
heard on every hand. But the story lacks
a general hero, as from its nature it must.
In Pittsburg city no lives were lost. The
hillside district escaped almost entirely,
but along the flats much damage TO the
streets and some damage to stores and
dwellings was done.
OF the south side, as it is called, across
the Ohio river, there is another story OF
disaster to tell, so much like that just told
t that it may be briefly stated. Sawmill
river is another of the creeks Of the region,
longer than those in Allegheny city and
1 with wider channel. 1t rises AT least
twenty miles south ofthe Ohio and runs due
north, emptying into that river east of the
: Allegheny city shore. Along it are sparse
= ly scattered the cottages of miners, ofwhom
+ some ten families also occupied one large
: block of wooden buildings directly over
q the stream. The flood came here as else
4 and some thrty-two are among the miss
i ing. Twelve bodies have been recovered,
r one Of which was swept out across the
= Ohio to the Allegheny city shore. An iron
: bridge, with immense stone abutments, was
G utterly wrecked, stones and iron being car
= ried miles away.
e From all the country round reports are
e coming slowly of loss add run in the track
t of Sundays storm, and it will be days be-
e fore correct estimates of the losses either
D of money or of life can be formed. The
: Allegheny city disaster illustrates the whole.
n tramp up the muddy gulch of Butchers
e Run explains easily enough how the flood
e happened, but not easily why it never
happened before. In spite of the tremen-
. dous water shed into that channel no fresh
d ct of any importance has ever occurred in
!, it. They have freshets here, but in the
Q rivers, and their rise is so slow that there is
$ time to escape to save property The sew
= er in Butchers Run is, or was, new one.
s The district as one of slaughter-houses
= and the run was the waste-pipe. 1t got TO
q be so offensive that the sewer was put in to
IL carry away the refuse underground. Till
/, Sunday last the sewer did its work well
G enough. Ii was overworked at last, but
it its overwork will scarcely account for the
o food, for there were floods enough besides
l. and no sewers mixed up with them.
e The Coroner held an inquest to-day pro
d forma, upon one of the dead bodies, and
N the verdict was simply death by drown
fl ing" With the drowned district rebuilt,
If another storm like sundays would repeat
e Sundays would repeat Sundays disaster,
n and yet for the thirty years in which there
c might have been just such another disaster.
+ it never came till Sunday. Why not it is
e hard TO say.
p Pittsburg will take care of its own poor.
j. Relief meetings have been held in both
n cities and a thorough organization effected,
: some $1,000 in subscriptions having been
d already received The track Of the flood
ID has been well guarded by improvised CON
m stables, and finally by the militia, who have
t, been of service in REFRESHING the plumber
r. ers that swarmed into the swamped streets
lie from Monday morning.
Sc
IL The FARMERS WAR-EQUAL TAXATION