Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1889-06-07
HIGH WATER.

from Johnstown arc to the effect that
hundreds of lives have been lost.
Houses have Teen carried away bod
lily. People fortunate enough to es
cape are fleeing to the mountains.
OVER TWO HUNDRED LIVES LOST.
Penns. lvania railroad officials in
Pittsbnrg say they have advices that
over two hundred bodies have been
counted floating down stream at
Johustown alone, while all along tho
line many additional lives have been
lost. Johnstown is described ms
wholly submerged, only two houses
being entirely above the water line.
A special train has left Pittsburg
with Pernsylvonia railroad officials,
newspaper men and telegraph opera
tors on board.
NEw FLORENCE, Pa, June 1.-The
gray morning light does not seem to
show hope or mitigation of tho awful
fears OF the night. We are where we
drove across tho mountains in tho
darkness of the early morning, at
New Florence, fourteen miles from
the scene of ,lesolation at Johnstown.
Seven bodies have been found on the
shore near thi, town, two being in a
tree-a man and womnn-where
the tide hid carried them Tho coun.
try people arc coming into tho news
centres in largo numbers, telling sto
ries of disasters along tho river banks
i'll secluded places. Jno. Mccartney,
carpenter, who lives in Johnstown.
reached here about clock. He left
Johnstown ut half past 4 yesterday,
and says the scene when he left was
Understandable. The people had been
warned early in the morning to move
to the highlands, but they did not
heed tho warming, although it was
repeated number Of times mp TO
o'clock, when tho water poured into
Cinder street several feet deep. Then
The houses began rocking to and fro,
and finally the force of the current
carried buildings across the street
and vacant lots, and dashed them
against each other, breaking them
into fragments. These buildings
were freighted with tho poor wretches
who had SO shortly before laughed at
the cry of danger. Mccartney says
that in some cases he counted IN
many rs many rs fifteen persons
cljnging to the buildings. Mozart
ney's wife WAS with him. She had
three sisters living near her, They
saw the house in which these girls
lived carried away aud then they
could stand it no longer, so they hur-
ried away. The husband feared his
wife would so crazy before he could
drag her away, and they left tho
doomed district and went inland
along the country roads until they
reached here. 1t is said To be next
to impossible TO get to Johnstown
today in any manner, except in row
boats. The roads arc 80 cut up that
even the countrymen refuse to travel
over them i'll their toughest vehicles.
The waters arc now receding as rap
idly as they rose last night. As the
banks uncover the dead are showing
up.
John L Weber and his wife, nm
old couple, and Mike Metzgar and
John Forney, were rescued near here
early this morning. They had been
carried from their home in Cambria
City OH the roof of the house. There
were seven others on the roof of the
house when it was carried off by the
angry waters. They were all drown
ed.
One hundred bodies have been re.
covered at Ninevah. Seventy per-
sons are reported burned to death in
the fire on Johnstown bridge.
w. n. Hays, who has just return
ed from Jamestown, snys that the
place is annihilated, Connaught is
wrecked and Cambria City swept
away. Fully 1,2OO lives are lost.
YOUNGSTOWN, June THE falling
water has laid bare the terrible work
of the flood, and the full extent Of
the disaster is only being asccrtained
now. The streets are one reeking
foul smelling mass of wood and
debris, and the work of seeking for