Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1888-07-26
STORM AT WHEELING
Unknown in Severity and Terror.
IMMENSE DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY
Many Lives Lost, and the City in Mourning
Intelligeneer, of Friday.

Many LIVES Lost, and the City in Mourning
Intelligeneer, of Friday.
Never before in the history of Wheel
ing or the vicinity was there experienced
a storm as terrific in its volume and fury
and as appalling in its effects as that
which began few minutes of o'clock
and ragged with seemingly ever increas-
ing fury for more than an hour Con-
siderable hail accompanied the rain, and
at times the lightning was terrific. The
! volume of the rainfall was certainly
three times as great as ever fell in the
same length of time, and the loss of life,
which it is difficult to ascertain definite
ly how many people periShed, exceeded
that resulting from any casualty in the
annals of the city. Streets were flooded
in many cases from house to house,
cellars filed or nearly filed, and in
many cases the first stories of buildings
were invaded by the seething yellow
tide which rolled down from the hills in
mad torrents.
The damage and destruction to mer-
chants stocks cannot vet be definitely
estimated. Thousands of dollars will
not cover it, while in the suburbs the
crops are a total loss.
The early and most heart-rending re-
ports of loss of life came from Caldwell's
Run, where not less than nine lives were
lost, four houses swept away, great gaps
washed in the natural gas mains, the
city bridges destroyed and the water
and gas supplies of the Eighth ward
cut off. Shortly before 10 o'clock the
Hemptield trestle of the Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad Company over the creek
at Main street was swept away, with
many people on it, and how many lost
their lives cannot reliably be told
The bridge of the Elm Grove railroad
over Woods Run at LeatherwOod was
washed away and that road badly dam
aged by waShouts. The Pittsburgh,
Wheeling and Kentucky road at Ninth
Street was washed out badly, and at
other points the road was rendered i'm
passable by mud and stones washed
upon it. The same roads trestle on the
extension South of the creek was dam
aged Just after an Ohio River freight |
train had safely passed over.
APPEARANCE OF THE STREETS.
Shortly after the rain began to fall
most heavily about 6:15-the water in
the streets got beyond the capacity of |
cutters and sewers to carry it off, and |
the streets almost without exception
were converted into raging rivers.
Twelfth Street was one sheet of water |
from Chapline Street to the river and
above Chapline was almost as bad. At |
Chapline tributary stream of the thick,
yellow fluid Joined and swelled the main
flood, while part of the waters was
diverted on Chapline Southwark. At
Market another torrent of water an2
mud swept into Twelfth Street and
on down Market, which was one sheet
of water from Eleventh Street to the
creek. Main street from the hill anoth-
er stream from curb to curb, which,
joining the swollen tide at Twelfth,
flooded the Western Union office foot
deep, and debOuched into the river a
raging torrent.
At Fourteenth street the scene was
the same, and all the streets in the main
part of town, North and South of the
creek, were like it.
The strength of the current was awful.
Large stones and boulders were rolled
over and over down the streets, the wa
ter splashing over them when their
course was obstructed. Where the wa
ter struck post or telegraph pole the
force of its onward rush carried it
straight up in the air four or five feet.
Tons of earth and stone were washed
into the river, the volume of water being
to swell the river three feet in
fifty minutes. Boxes, barrels, cans and
all sorts of debris were in the flood. At !
Sixteenth street on Market the tempo ;
rary sea flOated a large telegraph pole
clear across the street.
SOME OF THE EFFECTS.
When the water receded, the scene {
was one the like of which had never s
been seen before. Mud, stones and all /
sorts of debris were piled foot and in
some places two feet deep on streets
md several inches deep on some side
walks. On Market street below Twelfth {
he mud covered the street car track so {
Is to render it impossible and force of I
men were put to work last night clean t
ng it off. t
At Reymann's brewery, in Manches- '
er, the hard pike road which had stood S
he ravages of ages was washed out of !
existence, and large beer wagon which
stood in the open space near the brewery i
stables was buried up to the seat in mud $
md stones. '
A large hole was broken by the force t
If the water in the big main sewer i
,ack on Nineteenth street, at Chapline, &
md a similar bad bread was caused in 1
he sewer on Eoff street, South of Sey- v
s
The Seventeenth street bridge was be- v
ieved to be weakened again, but how e
erious the damage might be could not b
,e told last night.
On Eoff street, at the head of the t
treet, the water came off the hill in S
treams, and filed houses so deep that o
When the flood receded sediment was f
eft on the tops of stoves. Furniture a
Ioated on the water. At Smiths brew
ry, on Market street, the flood came o
'ouring through the building with large o
,ortions of the hill held in solution in n
t, and about foot of debris was left on a
he floor. 1t required the hardest efforts 1
# the whole force of employees to pre-
ent serious damage. As it was the loss a
vas nothing. p
These fragmentary cases show the a
haracter of the storm. No pen could
write an adequate description of it.
The river, which in fifty minutes rose p
hree feet, had by midnight risen ten f
eet Such a rise from local rain is @
imply unprecedented in history. There T.
eing no rise below, the current was ter
ilic. Shortly after midnight it began d
o fall.
TIE NATURAL GAS MAINS.
Both the natural gas companies had
heir mains badly damaged, and the n