The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-02-16
THE SWOLLEN OHIO.
NEW ALBANY.
The Greatest Calamity in the History of the
City-Distress in Jeffersonville.

The Greatest Calamity in the History of the
City-Distress in Jeffersonville.
special to the Indianapolis Journal
New ALBANY, Feb. 15.-The height of the
food at this city in February, 1882, was six
ty-nine feet The flood of December 1S47,
reached sixty-eight feet one inch. That of
February, 1882, went to sixty-fve feet five
inches. The present flood, with the water
still rising slowly, has already reached seven
ty-one feet four inches, or two feet four
inches greater than the height in the histor-
ical flood of 1882. Everywhere the food has
reached in this city it has brought only des-
olation. The destruction of the property is
immense, but the real losses cannot be cor
rectly estimated till the water falls SO as to
leave the flooded districts clear
to sight and calculation. The
interests affected are so many and
varied that to guess at the loss one is more
likely to go amiss than get at the true facts.
1t is enough to say that no calamity equal
ing its destructiveness has ever befallen New
Albany.
The immense plate-glass, bottle and win
dow-glass works Of w. c. DuPeaw, in which
a million and half of capital is invested in
furnaces and machinery alone, is a scene of
wreck. The food has reached a depth of
from five to ten feet all over the twenty
five acres covered by the buildings. The
furnaces are composed of heated clay which,
when touched by water and suddenly chilled,
fall to pieces. The immense annealing
ovens are of the same material characters
tics of construction and sensitiveness to
chill or water. These furnaces and the heat
ing pots for melting purposes which they con-
all lost and worthless-not even fit for use in
rebuilding
The Force & Co. Bent Wood-works are the
largest of their kind in Indiana Their ware
houses adjoining were packed full of manu-
factured and finished product The ware
houses and their contents are floating south
ward toward New Orleans, and the factory
proper is an utter wreck.
Five large iron foundries and machine
shops and large brass foundry are from
fifteen to twenty-five feet beneath
the food, and patterns, moulds and
other foatable machinery have been
swept away, and the machinery is badly
wrecked and damaged. Two large rolling
mills, the extensive steam forge-works the
los f1r it,tro for in, tba fa 1or
stove foundry, extensive spokeworks, six
large tanneries, extensive box-factory large
planing-mills, lumber yards, saw-mills, -four
mills and fifty other industrial establish
ments are under water-some of them nearly
out of sight. Over fifty residences and two
or three hundred stables are afloat or carried
away, and not fence or other clubhouse in
the entire flooded district is left
HOMELESS AND OUT OF EMPLOYMENT.
Last night and to-day fully 300 fami-
lies were driven out by the food,
making the total number of .fami-
lies driven from their homes all of 1000.
Five to six thousand employees of the indus
trial establishments are in enforced idleness,
and large proportion OF these are of those
whom the flood compelled to move. To
give an adequate idea of the suffering among
the flood victims would be impossible. Most
of them are poor people who have to depend
upon their daily labor for the support of
their families, and have no money ahead to
bridge over a calamity.
Bargerdng's store in lover New Albany
suburb with all its contents, foated off to-
day. This suburb is an utter wreck. In the
Ohio river bottoms below this city, from one
to two and a half miles wide, and the
richest garden lands in southern Indi-
ana, with the finest improvements, not
barn is. left in a distance of ten miles
Grain, hay, oats and straw stacks, farming
implements and wagons are swept away,
and great deal of stock is drowned Sew