The Sunday tatler and Jersey City express. (Jersey City, N.J.) 1883-1886, 1886-02-28
THE FEBRUARY BLIZZARD.
MAKES A WATER FAMINE IN BERGEN
AND HATOC, ETERYWHERE.

a ~1At ~ 49,
| AND HATOCtETERY
Why Many Residents of the Heights Came
Away from Home Yesterday Morning
with Hungry Stomachs and Dirty Faces
1.-The Damage in all Parts of the Country
"Did you have any breakfast this NON
ing?" was the query with which South
Bergen residents greeted each other yester-
day morning.
One fellow had eaten buckwheht cakes
baked in the furnace. Almost everybody
had started for work without washing, and
mighty few had been able to secure their
usual allowance of hot coffee. A sudden
water famine had spread over the commu-
nifty during the night. The whole section
is served by one main that extends from
the water works at Belleville. The wind
had blown spray into the mouth of the
screen of this main, till it had built an
impossible wall of ice there, and cut off
the water supply. The result was that, for
fear of bursting boilers and empty swater.
backs" no one in the whole region ven
tured to start blaze in his kitchen range
A good many of the careful housewives
sprang to the conclusion, the moment they
learned that the water refused to run, that
it had been frozen in the pipes, and emp
tied their kettles of hot water in vain efforts
to thaw the pipes out. Thus they wasted
the coffee reserve, and there was no way of
making it up again. They sent 10 neigh
bors to "borrow glass of water for the
CHILDREN" even, in vain.
Some enterprising lads, however, found
wells that the water had not been blown
OUT of, and sold it at ten cents pail. The
Jersey City horse car company sent water
10 their stables on trucks loaded with hogs
heads. Between one and two O'Clock, how
ever, the block at the mouth of the main
had been removed, and the water
famine was at an end. The famine made
fire an extremely probable outcome.
Ihoughtless housewives were apt to build
their tires in ignorance of the danger and
an explosion would be sure to be followed
by flames. AS no water could be had to
fight them, Chief Farrier sent one of the
chemical engines into the district. Luckily
there was but one little blaze. That, in
the house of Joseph Bumsted, on Ocean
avenue, was quickly extinguished.
The wind swept over the scene with such
searching violence that even Mill Greek
was blown dry. In its fury it did some
small damage. Rudderow Row, on the
crown of the Hill. at Summit avenue and
Montgomery street, was stripped of its tin
roof.
At the foot of Johnson street the roof
OF the gas-pipe fac DRY was blown off. The
telephone wires out of the city are down,
and they are much INSTRUCTED in the city.
A newspaper stand, corner of Palisade
avenue and Ferry street, was overturned
by the wind.
The strong wind so repealed the tide that
steamers that were to have sailed could not
clear their moorings, and those arriving
could not reach their docks. The ferry
boats were many of them detained from
half an hoqr to three hours owing to the
flow of heavy ice, and landing was for
time prevented by the low tide, on the
Hoboken ferry and on the New York side
of the Pavonia ferry. The greenhouse of
Herman Rupert, on the Hackensack Plank
road was destroyed by the gale and the
plants frozen by exposure. Trees and tel
egraph-poles were blown over on Union
Hill. and chimney on the residence of
A. =. Cohen, on Palisade avenue destroyed.
The Gutenberg Chemical Works stable
was damaged so IS to be useless, and the
timbers of the West Hobokep Observatory,
which was being demolished, were scat
tered abroad.
Late Associated Press dispatches to the
SUNDAY TATTLER show the extent of the
wind at the Equitable Building at half-past
10 o'clock A. NJ was blowing at the rate of
60 miles an hour. Heavy floating ice lined
the chores of the North River, extending
200 to 400 feet from the ends of piers,
causing difficulty to STEAMERS approaching
the wharves and delaying ferry passengers
A ferry bridge on the West Shore at Forty
second street was torn from its fastenings
and was wedged across the slip, half way
out. On the East River the ice accumu-
lated in the slips and The tide was lower
than before in fifteen years. A South ferry
boat became wedged in the ice on the
Brooklyn side and many passengers crossed
the ice tc the bridge, while other boats
bumped the bottom at times. "Flood
rock" and sNigger headn at He'll Gate
were uncovered. The Twenty Third street
boats made two trips only all day yester-
deg, The West Shore boats did not run
at all.
There were but few sag o. foot passen-
gers on the Brooklyn Bridge, and in the
arches of the towers two or three persons
were blown from their feet. Great dam
age was done to the telegraph wires all
over the country.
All vessels reached Their ports yesterday
mantled in ice Several were blown ashore;
some were wrecked, but no serious loss of
life is reported. Ii Bellows Fall, Vt, the
thermometer was twenty-five dogs. below
zero. There is snow in Maine. A brake
man on the Boston and Lowell Railroad
was blown from his train into the Charles
River and drowned, and at Lawrence,
Mass, a milkman was blown from his
wagon and killed. The steamer Idlewild
ran aground off Stamford, Conn and a
lifeboat with six passengers was blown out
to sea, but tug overlook them. At West
Nyaek, N. Y, q dwelling-ho was blown
down, but the family escaped. At New
burgh, N. r., Archibald Meyer, who went
to attend the trial of his brother for the
murder of his wife and her paramour, was
frozen to death while returning home.