Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1888-08-23
4 MIGHTY STORM.
Wheeling Again DeIuged
The STONE BRIDGE DESTROYED
No Lives Lost, but Great Destruction Of
Property, and Obstruction Of Travel.
From the Intelligencer, of Yesterday.

From the Intelligencer, of Yesterday.
The effects of the storm in the city
were in many respects much more Sc
verely felt than those of the storm OF
July 10.
The loss cannot, from the nature of it,
be estimated yet, but it viii reach thou
sands of dollars. The storm was Sc
steady and SO long continued that il
caused good deal of alarm. All day
long crowds of people with umbrellas
lined the creek banks and occupied all
the bridges, and other points of advan-
tage from which the raging creek could
be watched. The wreckage that came
down indicated somewhat of the charac-
ter of the destruction wrought up the
creek. Cross beams from wrecked bridg-
es and trestles, pieces of fencing and
sections of buildings came floating down
continually. Evidently much of the
stuff carried down by the stream was
wreckage from the flood of month ago,
left strewn along the valley and now
swept on by the second food.
Among it were a number of telegraph
poles, having the cross timbers and glass
insulators on, and all new. These were
evidently poles put up by the Western
Union Company in place of those swept
away by the July storm.
TIE BALTIMORE & OHIO TRESTLE GOES.
About 20 minutes before o'clock in
the afternoon large section of a wreck
ed bridge came bounding down on the
waves, and struck with crashing force
the new Baltimore and Ohio trestle
which crossed Wheeling Creek at Main
and Sixteenth streets. This treStle was
temporary structure erected after the
other one was swept away by the flood
of July. 1t gave way at once and was
carried bodily against the piers of the
Baltimore and Ohio depot, where it
went into a thousand pieces with a
mighty crash and gigantic commOtion
in the hurrying waters, and the frag-
mentS were borne in flash out into the
river and halfway over toward the Isl
and shore.
Nobody had the hardihoOd this time
to go out upon this bridge, but the Main
street stone bridge and the Baltimore
and Ohio depot, as well as the creek
banks in the vicinity, were black with
people, and loud cry went up when
the structure gave way, which quickly
brought others to the spot.
THE STONE BRIDGE DESTROYED.
At ten minutes before 6 o'clock the
old stone bridge on Main street over the
creek, bridge which had stood the big
flood of 80, the bigger food of 'S4, and
the lesser floods between, gave way and
fell into the rushing water.
The bridge had been crowded with
all the afternoon. Just be-
fore the disaster both walls of it were
lined with people, looking at the wreck
of the Hempfield trestle on the one side
and the daShing stream on the other
Two Intelligencer reporters on a tour of
observation reached the bridge about
5:45. At that time there must have
been 500 people on it, the line reaching
from end to end on both sides, and two
or three deep.
There were on the bridge three water
mains which conveyed the entire supply
Of the South Side; gas main, natural
gas main, telegraph, telephone and cleo
trio light lines.
DAMAGE TO THE RAILROADS.
The greatest damage done is again to |
be found out the line of the Baltimore |
and Ohio R. R., on the Pittsburgh Divi- |
sion. Passenger train No. 3, Captain |
Brady conductor, which left Pittsburgh |
1t $50 A. NJ, and was due here at 12.45,
S reported caught between washed out |
5restle bridges and new made embank-
nents, a short distance this side of Tri-
ldelphia, only few yards from where
he Philadelphia Express was caught in
he July food.
So far as can be learned five of the |
reStle bridges that were constructed in
Ilace of the substantial structures that
we're destroyed last month are gone, and
he fills and other new work are almost
'bliterated. The damage is reported to
xtend far beyond the limits of that of
he July storm, and serious waShOuts are
hought to have occurred near to West
Alexander.
Just what the damage done out on
he Fourth division of the main stem of
he Baltimore and Ohio, between here
nd Grafton, amounts to, is a matter
ard to determine, for the telegraph
TireS in that direction are also down.