Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1894-05-24
i Great Flood.

"A UEVtSt Il AVVWs
The great downpour of rain on Sun
day and Monday last occasioned one of
the exceptional floods that occasionally
visit sections of the country.
The states of Pennsylvania and New
York suffered most from this visitation
of angry waters, damage to property
fortunately rather than loss Of life be.
ing the chief result.
Railroad and telegraph business has
been wholly paralyzed in some sections
and trains are able to get through only
by interchange of tracks and roads that
under ordinary circumstances refuse to
permit even a freight car of other GER
tain roads to pass oyer their tracks have
allowed trains to 60 around gaps occa-
stoned by flooded track or washed away
bridges.
Pennsylvania has suffered most and
aim ost IN the identical section visited
at the time of the Johnstown disaster.
The west branch Of the Susquehanna
shows the most phenomenal rise, being
thirty-fve feet aboye the normal in
1889 it was but twenty-nlne.
Williamsport, the great pine and
hemlock lumber city, Is on the West
Branch and the experience Of that city
has never before been paralleled. Every
foot of the city was under water from
four to fifteen feet, probably more than
a million dollars worth of property has
been destroyed and hundreds OF families
are homeless. The gas and electric
light plants were under water, of course
no trains could enter, the telegraph
service was destroyed and for time
one telephone wire alone connected
them with other places.
The mammoth log boom, in which
were held one hundred and fifty million
feet Of logs was wrecked /; the logs freed
became immense catapults on the Sur
face of the rushing waters and they
battered down two of the four bridges
that spun the river at that point. These
logs are valued at 100000 and will 60
down the Susquehanna to the bay where
they will be captured by log catchers
on tugs and taken to mills at different
points on tide water. The original
owners will under an arrangement in
such matters, receive something for them
from those who saw them.
Johns:own has agaln suffered 4: at
Gaysport about o'clock on Monday
morning, the people were aroused by
the shrleking of locomotive whistle
and were told to fly to the hills as the
Altoona reservoir holding 100000
gallons was about to burst; at Phila-
delphia the Schuylkll river drove a
number of vessels against bridge
some of them sinking at Allentown
the shops were under water; at Beth
lehem the Iron Company's works were
inundated; Johnstown was damaged
from SEC, 900 to $50, 900; collieries were
flooded in the Schuylkill region and
along the Juniata river bridges, rail-
roads haye been washed away and en-
tire farms have been ruined. beng cut
up into gulies and covered with sand
five feet deep at places.
In New York state reports Of ruined
crops abound on the Northern Central
north Of Elmlra and Fall Brook be-
tween Corning and Williamsport, Pa.
traffic has been wholly abandoned
In Maryland the damages are chiefly
from washed fields, the tomato crop in
Hartford countyhavlng suffered severity
| JQelt WAS u ueSLTuCIlTe bIOIu III huue
Arundel county, ten barns having beer
demolished the melon and other truck
ing crops have boon seriously damaged;
the Potomas river at Wllliamsport was
high, but not within twenty-five feet o.
high water mark in 1889.
The storm generated off the South
Atlantic coast moved over the States
northward, where it met tho cold cur
rent from which snow had been reported
in Wisconsin. The warm and humid
current mixing with the cold caused The
unusul precipitation and the area OF
both being immense, Large section Of
country received a great rainfall. The
conditions were identical with those
that existed May 81, 1850, hence similar
results.