The Dickinson press., 1896-08-01
LOST IN THE FLOOD
PENNSYLvANIA's HURRICANE MORE
FATAL THAN FIRST REPORTED.

Eighteen Lives Are Thus Far
known To Have Becn Lost - a
Minres' DOnr.ling House I. Swept
Away nnd All hut One Of the IHif.
teen Sleeping Occupants Are
Drowned.
Pittsburg, July %. = A wind and
rain storm Of unusual iiercelless Wis.,
tied this city to-day causing tn. loss
of at least three lives and doing
immense damage TO property. Several
and others partially wrecked. Eight
off and otherwise damaged. Tclc-
poles We're snapped like pipe stems,
mixing the wires in an incXtrit:llle
mass. Fierce lightning and high
winds accompanied tln storm, or ratll-
or. two st )rlnS. for l'ittsburg and Alla-
gheny was the meeting place of one
storm from the west which came up
the Ohio valley and brother from the
east which followed the cculse of the
Allegheny river. Such Il battle of the
elements Is rarely witnessed. III Fast
l'i,tsburs and Wilmcrling hail. fell in
large quantities. some OF the stones
being large ones. In the first five
n.Hutcs OF the storm rs Of an inch of
water fell and the wind reached q
velocity of thirty niles an hOu'.
Later another Stcrh. almost as fleece
as the first. came up and .GS of an
irch fell making a total of l.:3. The
rivers are now rising ard another
flood is expected. Among the casual
ties reported is ali accident to the
camp nf tile Eighth Ward Hunting
and Fishing Club Of Allegheny. The
club was at its camp in Sugar grove.
about four miles up the Allegheny
river when the storm came up. The
members say it was
4 Genuine Cyclone.
The trees in the grove were broken
and twisted as Though they We're
weeds. and enc large sycamore thirty
feet in circumfcr.l CO was snapped Off
near the ground and fell upon the
tent of the campers. killing almost i'll
stantly John Figus. broke the back of
George Miller, who will die. and scri-
ollsly injuring Thomas O'Connell.
Charles KOsack. Jacob Metz, Frank
OFT and Harry Hadley.
On Greenfield avenue. in the East
end. Joseph Ashfclder was killed by 4
sign being blown down. striking him
on the head. In Sharpsburg w. l..
Norr was killed by the roof of a house
being blown down OH him.
At McKee's Rocks. where Prof. Ge-
rOdctte, curator of Carnegie museum,
had Il gang of men at work digging up
an old Indian MOI nd i'll the interest Of
science. lightning struck tree under
which the party had taken .'efuge,
shocking one. of the laborers, an old
man. into l,n'q rsC ionSness. also a
young man by the Lame of Pool, son
Of cole &c professor, both Of whom
will probably die
Pittsburg. July 3O.-The full extent
OF the damage wrought by the llurri-
cane was not known until today,
when wreck and ruin were apparent
on all sides. Steeples were blown
from churches and adjoining buildings
crushed. Houses We're unrOOfed,
trees broken off and in some cases
torn UP by the roots, while the havoc
caused by the heavy rainfall of last
week was repeated. Summed up to-
day. with many outlying districts to
hear from. the result was eighteen
lives lost, tllirty-siX injured, many it
is feared. fatally, and property dam
aged to the extent Of 100000.
The list of killed as far as reported
Mckenna, James McKenna, Jennie
LIo1 ,s1
Italian miners who We're drowned ut
Cecil, Pa; William Rose, drowned
near Boston, Pa; Jacob Afferter Pitts
burg, killed by a falling fence; John
Fighs, skull crushed by falling tree at
Sugar Camp Grove.
One Of the most terrible results of
the storm was the drowning of II num-
ber of coal miners in the Painters run
district, just over the county line. The
boarding house which they occupied
was blown down and swept away,
and Of the sixteen people sleeping in it
fifteen were drowned. The bodies OF
eight have been recovered. The board
ing house was in little mining set
Element called Cecil, ON the line of the
Eight-Alile branch of the Pan Handle
road, which leaves the CHARTERS di-
vision ut Bridgevillc The branch
runs over to Mcdonald, and Cecil is
located midway between the two
points. The fatality occurred ut 4
Il. H.. when the small stream. Paint
er's run. which empties into CHARTERS
creek. was suddenly swollen into a
roaring torrent by cloudburst. Many
narrow escapes are reported from the
valley through which Painters run
courses, and it is not unlikely that
some of the others may have perished.
although there is no further rumored
loss Of life. Several houses in the val
ley We're swept away, bbut the occu-
pants. so far us learned, all managed
to seek places of safety before their
homes were carried down the stream.
Some of the occupants were rescued
in skiffs. The rigging in many oil
wells was swept away, and the men
working about them were compelled
to flee for their lives as the torrent
bore down the valley on its course of
death and destruction.
AT Braddock, hail added to the DAM
age, and when the hurricane reached
Turtle creek it assumed the awful pro-
portions of a cyclone, doing untold
damage. In the oil fields derricks
were blown down. particularly in
O'Hara township. Sewickley, Cora
opolis, Bellevue and McIzee's Rock
suffered severely. IN Millvale and
Sharpsburg hail caused havoc, and
GLACIERS will be busy for several days.
The damage to property was gen-
eral and various in Pittsburg and Allie
gheny. The wind unroofed dozens Of
houses, while others were damaged
by the water washing their founda-
tions away. Still others were struck
by lightning. The traction lines, as
usual, were compelled to suspend ope-
rations. Great heaps of dirt and de-
lris from the previous floods piled
near the tracks were washed down
again, and the only lines which es-
capped serious delays were those OH
the South side. All the railroads suf-
fcred heavily from landslides, but the
lines arc all open and the trains are
all running. with very little delay.