Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-06-07
RAIN! FLOOD! F|RE!.
How the Rush of Oil and Water
Started on Its Destruc-
tive Road.
PEOPLE SLEEP IN PEACE
While the Dams Burst and the Deluge
Sweeps Quickly Onward.
GASOLINE FLOATS in FLAMES
Upon Thousands of Unprotected Men,
Women and Children.
PEOPLE SLEEP IN PEACE
GASOLINE FLOATS in FLAMES
SIGHTS AND SCENES IN TITUSVILLE
rFRoN A STAFF CORRESPONDENT

fallen upon this CITY, On Saturday might
the community, excepting party of citi
zens who went up on picnic to Oil Greek
Lake about 20 miles distant on the preced-
ing afternoon and were prevented by a
washout on the railroad from returning that
night, retired as usual to rest. It had
rained good deaf for several days, but Oil
creek, which runs through the town, was
still below the top of its banks, and the
citizens went to bed and to sleep without a
thought of approaching danger.
1t rained heavily all the evening, but this
was nothing unusual 1t must have rained
much more heavily as far north as Chau-
tauqua Lake, at least Oil creek and all its
tributaries were suddenly swollen as they
had never been before.
Spartansburg is town about 10 miles
north of Titusville. A good-sized stream,
whose waters empty into Oil creek, is
damned at this point for water power,
throwing the water back over perhaps l, 900
acres, and holding it as a motive power for
mills. There was something like cloud
burst above and beyond this pond late on
Saturday afternoon, causing such swell as
suddenly let through mighty river, which
swept everything before it.
Dams Could Not Stay the Flood.
Other dams, all the way to Titusville,
broke away and the flood reached this city
between 2 and 3 o'clock Sunday morning.
The water was several feet above the highest
water mark ever known here. The heavy
fall of rain continued until after midnight,
supplying the streams above, and it was not
until o'clock Sunday afternoon, that the
great stream at Titusville began to recede
Titusville is supplied with water by the
Holley system. The works are located upon
the west bank of Oil creek about half
mile above the northern limit OF the town.
The flood first struck and submerged the
water-works, thus suddenly depriving the
citizens of their supply of domestic water,
and this lasted nearly "a hours. Not only
this. but the water for e1tiDguishing fires
in this city comes almost solely from the
hydrants of the Holley system, the pressure
being increased to high limit whenever
required. so that the closing of the water
works suddenly left the city almost entirely
without the means to extinguish or even
check confiagration.
Two old fire steamers were still owned by
the city. One of these was disabled and
the other in bad state of repair, so it did
not throw water with more than half its
original force.
How the Fire Was Started.
The city is heated by natural gas and
lighted by electricity and Illuminating gas
Both the natural and the Illuminating gas
were shut off as precaution soon after the
food struck the city. But fuel for
destructive confiagration was at hand and
in great abundance.
A string of oil refineries, beginning with
the Oil Creek Works on the north, runs
through the city near the stream, south
eastward, seven or eight in all. A tank of
gasoline at the Oil Creel. Works was over
turned by the flood and the contents thrown
out upon the surface of the water. 1t
Heated downward with the current past the
reineries of Rice, Robinson s. Fagan and
of the International Oil Works without
taking fire from either or any source until
it reached the Crescent Works, owned by
John Schwartz & Co., about half mile
below. There the heavy vapor from the
gasoline f1oated into fire in the furnace of
the stills and ignited and then back to the
stream upon the surface of the water This
stream of gasoline still extended back as
far as the Rice & Robinson Works.
The Crescent Works instantly took fire
tanks followed.
The Awful Rush of Flames
Then the fire rushed up the creek upon
the stream of gasoline, setting fire first to
the International and next to the Rice &
Robinson refinery. Tanks and stills at both
works Immediately exploded, throwing
floods of burning oil upon the stream, and a
sheet of flame moved away downward with
the current over the waste of water. AT
first the flood struck the dwellings of all the
people who lived upon the flats from Mon
roe street down. The inmates almost in an
instant were awakened by the rush of water
against and into their homes and into their
bedrooms upon the ground floor where
many of them slept.
The terror of the people can be better
imagined than described. The women and
children at first screamed. In their night
clothes the older ones, uplifting the young
children, carried them into the chambers,
where there was a chamber Their cries and
groans were heard by those who came down
to the waters edge and even waded into the
water to render all possible assistance, but
were deferred by the rush of water. Some
houses were overturned and the inmates
driven into the surging food
All the terrible distress at first came from
water alone. Then fire, like demon, at
burning oil was washed upon the houses |
and the outside, and in some cases the in |
side, walls were covered with flame. At |
first the inmates, if they leaped from their |
dwellings, plunged into deep running
water.
Now they must be burned to death |
when they jump into what is almost sea |
of flame AT first it was terror; now it is |
indescribable desperation and despair.
Nea,h in the Flood of Flame.
Some with shrek jumped into the boil
ing Hood of water and flame, others in de- |
spair or panic stricken, met death in their |
burning dwellings,. One woman was seen |
to hold out from a window a child and put
it into the water where there was no fire
The child sank and was probably drowned.
The mother evidently returned for another
child, but the house was on fire, and the poor
woman and all others remaining inside were
smothered and then burned.
1t is impossible to know whether more
met death by drowning or from fire. Some
may have first been drowned and then
burned
Most of those events occurred before the
alarm OF fire was sounded and this came
alone from the fire bell Usually a warning
Of fire in this city is given bv the blowing
Of steam whistles in the vicinity of the fire,
is we'll as by the bell in the tower of the
ire department. But the food drove the
satchmen away from every engine which
might have been carrying steam on this
night or Sunday morning.
Citizens Hasten to the Scene
At o'clock the cloudless heavens were
lighted by the confagration, and those citi-
ems remote from the flood were also soon
'ut of their beds and rushing to the assist