San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1889-06-01
PENNSYLVANIA IN MOURNING.

PENNSYLVANIA IN MOURNING.
The wires this morning are freight
ed with the sad tidings of one of the
most heart rending calamities that
has ever befallen an American COM
munity. The unprecedented rains
that have fallen in some sections of
the state of Pennsylvania, and in the
Allegheny ridges, have caused sud-
den rising of all the streams. This
rush of waters filled the reservoir at
South Fork just above Johnstown,
Pa, and finally bursting the dam, lit
orally. flooded the entire city from its
foundations. This reservoir is all inn
mense body of water, formerly used
as feeder for the old Pennsylvania
canal. 1t lies quite above the town of
Johnstown and when it's great body
of water came pouring into the
doomed city nearly every house was
swept from it's foundations. All COM
munications were instantly cut off
both by rail and telegraph, and the
horrors of the awful catastrophe are
only to be conjectured. The only re.
liable information at present has
been from the signal tower, Sag Hol-
low, six miles west of Johnstown. The
official report of the railroad operator
is to the effect, that before dark he
counted one hundred and nineteen
bodies floating past. Another report
places the number of dead bodies seen
floating by at two hundred, and a
mounted courier from the scene of the
disaster reports the estimated loss of
life at one thousand five hundred.
The details of the awful calamity are
of necessity unknown, but the i'm
agination can picture it's own horrors.
An entire town struck by mass of
rushing waters with such force
as to carry all it buildings off
their foundations is catastrophe
most terrible to contemplate. While
it is no doubt true that the awful loss
of human life is exaggerated, it is none
the less certain from the very nature
Of the case that a most terrible and
unheard of calamity has occurred.
The fearful cyclones which swept
through Iowa and Minnesota some
years since; the terrible suffering caus-
ed by the great Dakota billiards.; the
losses sustained in the Michigan pin
hi fac or nh of
Samoa, all fall below this in the
measure and extent of damage to
property and loss of human life. The
rise, in the river has swept away
miles of railway track, carried down
scores of bridges, destroyed freight
trains, and laid up every passenger
train between Pittsburg and Johns
town. The middle and Pittsburg di-
visions of the Pennsylvania Central
are utterly unable to move a train.
Wires down, bridges out, track sub
merged, and land slides near the foot
of the mountains covering acres of
the track. On the Pennsylvania and
Erie road affairs are nearly as bad
From Greensburg comes the report
that debris is piled up above the rail-
way bridge at JOhnstOwn to the
height of forty feet, and that the solid
stone bridge is in great danger of be-
ing swept away. The city of Harris
burg is in danger of damage from the
rapid rise in the Susquehana, and the
inhabitants are being removed from
Sibbletown in boats. The Paxton
river is higher than in the great flood
of 1865, and very serious appre-
hensiou is felt. NVilliamport, Penns-
ylvania, reports higher water
than in the great freshet of
1860, and millions of feet Of logs lying
in the streams will be lost. The best
conception of the volume of water in
the reservoir at Johnstown and of its
destructive power may be gathered
from this. The reservoir is about
three and One-half miles long from a
mile to a mile and a quarter in
width, and is in some places one
hundred feet deep. 1t is the largest
reservoir in the United States. The
level of the water in this reservoir is
nearly three hundred feet above the
streets of Johnstown, being in the
mountains. The dam by which this
water water was confined by dam
nearly one thousand feet long, ninety
feet at the base and one hundred feet
high. The dam was inspected
monthly by the engineer of the Pen
sylvania railway and it was generally
supposed that only a convulsion of
nature could destroy it. This i'm
mense body of water rushed down
upon the devoted town of Johnstown
lying some two miles away from the
dam and literally swept it out of ex-
istence. 1t piled the debris forty feet