Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1892-01-30
OUT oE WATER.

The Sources OF Chicagos supply Ckoked
Up by Ioe, and tho City Utterly De-
prlved of water for Many Hours-Mapu-
facturors Forced to Shut Down and
Business Almost Paralyzed-How Relief
Was Obtained.
CHICAGO, Jan. 22.-For the first time
in its history the entire city of Chicago
has been without q drop OF water,
the entire system of supply being par
alyzed. The cause Of this alarming
condition of affairs was the fact that
the three sources from which the
city at present receives its supply
were on Wednesday night frozen up,
and not u pint of water reached the
various pumping stations throughout
the city at o'clock Thursday morning.
The result of this was that the depart
ment of public works and the city en-
gineer's department were both throw
into condition of panic and the mos
alarming possibilities stared citizens
the face.
Business all over the city vas
suspended, several fires were in
progress without any water for theare
department to use in quenchisk tim,
and as result the magnihcen' fire
system of Chicago was for the
first time since the great con-
hagration in state of lmost
utter helplessness In the ,iecyht
of the panic the suggestion wa raised
in the engineers office that boler ex-
plosions might be looked for asa result
of the utter dearth of water, aid men
were sent out to scurry aroundwith in
structions to have boilers shutdown all
over town until the water supply could
be got into proper working oder.
1t was just Z o'clock whH City En-
;gineer Clarke was notified that the p
mile crib was frozen psolid, not a
single port-hole being o'en. The q
mile crib is the large structure which
lies at right angles witt the shore
just northeast of Chicap avenue, and
is the one which in years past, and, in
fact, until recently, supplied all the
water used in the city AID gave to the
different pumping works the supply Of
water which they brced through
that at present supplies all the district
comprised within the oil city limits
AS result the sever engines which
run the pumps at the Chicago avenue
water works and tie six engines
on the West side nad to be shut
down and the pumps had to lie
idle. Capt Mckee, WHO is in charge
of the 2-mile or main crib, stated
in his notification of the city engineer
that the trouble thi. time was not an
ordinary piling up d ice blocks but a
solid freezing up, tie entire structure
being surrounded with wall of ice oi
great thickness.
Soon the news was telephoned ir
that the Sixty-eighth street crib was il
the same condition that the North side
ply for Hyde park, town o
Lake and the stock yards dis
trict Here the great packers
use enormous quantities of wate
daily, millions of gallons being use,
hourly. Then came the news that tn,
Lake View inlet, which is the primitive
intake that runs out into the lake op
posite Sulzer street and supplies LAX
View, was also frozen up as tight as
drum. Thus the three primary sources o
Chicago's water supply were closed up
Tugs and tireboats, loaded with mel
and appliances for bre al,ing up the ice
were plowing their ways through tn
waters of the lake to tn
various points of trouble.
A message received at 3 p. m. sal,
that the powerful streams from tn
Yosemite had forced the slush ice ou
of the way; that the pipes were clea
and taking water freely and that tn
great water famine which had worrie
Chicagoans for nearly nine hours wa
over. The engineers in charge of al
the city pumping stations reported a
$40 that they had full supply of wa
ter and received orders to start thei
numpa