Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-06-02
THE RIVERS DARK DRAMA.
Watching the EDilogus Of rhe South Fork
Tragedy on the AlIegheuy's Banks.

Watching the Epilogus of the South Fork
Tragedy on the AlIesheuy's Banks.
+, TAwNY and turbulent was the Ohio yester-
day. 1t bore upon its ever broadening bosom
the fragments Of a thousand homes. The gray
clouds gave no CHEEKY tint 20 the brown waters,
and they flowed furiously, biting at the banks
and tossing tumultously together trees, timbers
and the wrecks of countless houses thrashed
out to kindling wood against bridge and rock
in the mad rush of the flood. The sun had set
the night before on q quiet river. 1t was a
mighty change that had come in the night. The
waters seemed to have a cruel look; and the
speed of the current suggested forcibly the
fight Of q murderer from the scene of his
crime.
The terrible news SO graphically given in The
DISPATCH yesterday morning seemed all the
more thrilling when the reader could look from
the paper to the swollen river.
The Ohio has not been higher or uglier for a
twelvemonth, and even as early as o'clock
yesterday morning, six miles below Allegheny
the grim messengers from the scene of destruc-
tion, doors, scraps of roofing, window frames
smashed furniture, and here and there some
piteous reminder of destroyed home, such as
cradle or rocking chair, Uttered the ex-
panse of water from shore to shore.
Exz
THE quay and outer wall of the lock at the
Bellevue dam were under water, and the only
signs to show where the dam itself lay were
some of the timbers of Golfer dam which has
been in process of building all this winter near
the southern end of the wickets. At this point
the river was boiling torrent. The swish
and roar of the conflicting currents could be
una 40 o%
Above the dam the mass of hoat-
ing debris became larger, and the
scene more exciting. All along the river
bank from Dixmont up men in skiffs were to be
seen pulling hard against the current and hug
ging the banks. All they seemed to be after
was the lumber broken loose from RATS in the
upper rivers. There was plenty Of it. But
above Bellevue the skiffs multiplied, and pow
erfu1 steamboats, came into view, driving be-
fore them the tows of coal which had been tied
up to the bank along the landings of Neville
and Jacks Run. The sternwheelers seemed to
have all they could do to stem the stream.
The rebellious strength of the great river
showed itself plainly. It played with heavy
steamer as if it had been pleasure launch.
#x4
But still nothing in the Ohio's appearance
prepared one for the evidences of a great ca
lamity that crowded upon the eye as one
looked up and down the Allegheny from the
Sixth street Suspension bridge. Greater floods
have been seen often before in the treacherous
Allegheny, though the yellow tide was high
enough yesterday to submerge the Pittsburg
and Western tracks and to imperil the craft
tied to the banks. At first one hardly realized
what the foes Of matted debris, which at times
absolutely hid the rivers face meant. heard
a man who had been silently staring at the
packs of splintered timber for ten minutes say:
THE food must have struck sight Of saw
millsr' 1t was reasonable error, for the re-
fuse Of twenty sawmills seemed to have been
emptied into the river-of twenty, nay, a
thousandi
But it was no sawmin that turned out these
shivered fragments.
Down the Allegheny were slipping all that
was left Of thousands of honest
%sR
WHEN this thought struck mans mind he
shivered. The whirling race of the river made
his head swim; the thought of the homes torn
into shreds, of human beings dashed to eternity
without seconds warning, or held between
life and death only long enough to make the
final cutting of the thread more awful still,
made his heart sick.
Crashing and grinding against the bridge piers
came down the remains of what had been yes
terday the roofs, walls, floors and furniture of
houses in Johnstown or her tributary villages.
There seemed to be no end to the foods pillage.
The crowds upon the bridges and the river
banks had a new relic of the great disaster to
look at every minute. Here was a whole stair
case hanging together still upon the top of
floating pile of wood cut into splinters as if
with sharp hatchet The woodwork of
garden pump trailed behind-an outlandish
rudder. There, compact mass Of window
frames, the trellis work of porch and whole
door caught the eye of the men in large skiff.
who were on the outlook for human remains
See, the wreckage is SO tightly twisted and
wedgedtogether that it is strong enough to
support mans weight, and one of the oars
men, dropping his oar, steps upon it and prizes
it open with boat hook. The men in the boat
drag away the door and heavier timbers that
look like beams of roof, while the river tears
along with the boat and its quarry locked
together. The man with the boathook
fishes out something limp and black. For mo-
ment the spectators hold their breath, but it
proves to be a mans coat; the wearer of it can
not be found, and the discoverer resumes his
place at the oar. His companions push off just
in time to avoid large tree floating with its
broken roots pointing to the sky, and the shat
tered skeleton of a home is swept out of sight
tx<
AMONG the wreckage, which comes as fast
and thick as ice foes do in a January thaw. the
skiffs shoot in and out. daring great deal, but
keeping in the narrow paths of clear water
with astonishing skill. The men who are risk
ing their lives in their watch for the victims of
the flood are not always unsuccessful in their
search. In the shadow of the Exposition build
ing a clotted stack of dismembered house walls
gives up the body Of a woman So cruelty have
the waters used her that not shred of clothing
hangs to her, and the wonder is that her poor
lacerated body has withstood the buffeting 50
long.
With its bow touching the pier Of the Sixth
street bridge and the stroke oar rowing stead
lily all the time to keep her from being swung
down stream skif holds four men who eye
the procession of ruins sharply as they float
by. They see strange sights. Now it is a
stable rent in twain; it has come through the
ordeal with small injury; several bales of hay
are still inclosed in the woodwork, and, a
pitiful sighti two hor ses float beside their food
The ropes that tetnered the poor brutes are
still unbroken but the wall to which they were
tied is gone. In another heap a half Of large
kitchen clock lies beside water-butt and the
bannisters of a staircase are sticking up at odd
angles from the unrecognizable tangle of
splinters.
So the tide swept on for hours. Crowds of
curious people watched the dreadful freight
the Allegheny Increasingly hurried toward the
South from dawn till dark. 1t seemed as if the
Kiskiminetas would have never done disgorg-
ing its prey. The STORY of ruin and death that
the Allegheny told wasS fitting epilogue to the
terrible tragedy of southFork.
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SURELY no battlefield, drenehed in blood and
echoing with the groans of the wounded, could