Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1894-09-14
Sidewalks Carried Away, Streets
Overlooked, and Cellars and
Easements are Flooded.
The First National Basement Over
flowed, Owing to the Gazing
of Area Walls.
DOlan's Barber Shop Literally
Wrecked By a Torrent of the
Muddy Water.
Storekeepers and Property Owners
Get Wetted To the Tune Of
About $4,000.
Watery Destruction.

Watery Destruction.
Something broke Thursday night.
It is the general impression that it
must have been a cloud, containing the
entire amount of water which has been
held suspended during the past two
months.
The drouth is ended, also, and this
morning, there are vestiges of last
nights food scattered from end to end
and side to side Of the city.
In the lower places about the city,
there are vast lakes of water, from six
inches to a foot deep, in which is float
ing around the debris collected by the
water, as it flowed along the streets
and highways, in a rushing, seething
torrents. Sidewalks have been torn
from their %fastenings, and pieces of them
are floating about independently, in
secluded and widely scattered places.
Sections of crosswalk have been carried
for distances of a hundred yards or so,
and deposited in all sorts of positions
upon the walks which have remained in
tact. Cord wood from dozens of differ
ent wood piles, is drifting aimlessly
along with the tide. Hencoops, barrels,
planks, and all kinds of portable prop
erty, which was exposed to the rushing
streams of water, have been carried
along and deposited in places foreign to
them.
Cellars and easements are full to over
flowing, and in many of them, various
articles of goods and merchandise are
floating about in a condition of watery
rum. In one locality just across from
the old refrigerator building on the south
side, there is an inland lake, half a
mile long, and a couple of hundred
yards wide, where, in a depth of a foot Of
water stand a few dozen residences, which
last evening stood on the dryest and
busiest of dry land. And this morn
ing, the occupants were to have been
seen, wading carefully about, looking
for articles of portable property which
strayed off in the food, and endeavor-
ing to determine the extent of the dam
age.
At the corner of Sixth and Main
streets this morning, COMPOUNDED con-
fusion reigned. On the west side of the
street, for a block north, the walk had
given away, and sections of it we're scat
tered over all parts of the So uare. An
upper crossing had been borne for a
block, and was lodged transvsrsely across
the Main street crossing. Another Sec
ton had been cast up at the foot of the
steps leading into the Lanborn hospital,
and had rested on this convenient
Ararat. Debris of all kinds covered the
street from side to side. Planks had
been torn up from the walks in various
places and protruded awkwardly from
their normal positions. And an old COW
stood in the middle of the street and
drank in the features of the scene and a
long draught of water from a temporary
watercourse.
The storm, proper, began at about 7:3O
last evening, and for an hour there was
a steady and quite heavy rainfall,
although there was no unusually great
precipitation. From about 8 until
shortly before II, there was a cessation
Of the storm, although the clouds mani
tested no signs Of clearing away, and the
muttered roll of occasional thunder and
the brilliant flashes of lightning at inter-
walls denoted the proximity Of another
storm center. At about 1870 there
began one Of tie most brilliant and vio-
lent electrical storms ever experienced
in the city. Flashes Of lightning fol-
lowed each other with a rapidity which
was startling, a bril!iancy which was
dazzling, and in an unbroken succession
which was unusual. 9 The darkness was
intense, and yet the brilliancy and VIC
lence Of the electrical display was such
as to afford an almost continuous light,
broad and brilliant as that Of the sun at
MONDAY. Peal after peal Of thunder
echoed and re-echoed, and not the long,
incessant rolls which distinguish the