The age-herald., 1900-07-27
RIVERS OF RAIN
 RAN RUSHING
Through the Streets and Form
 ed Great Lakes.
A FLOOD THAT FELL GENTLY
But Fell in Extraordinary Volume, Com ing Without Thunder, Lightning or Wind-Stopping Cars and
 Wetting a Multitude

The streets of busy Birmingham are not dusty or dirty this morning This extra ordinary condition of the streets of busy | Birmingham is due to an extraordinary l rainfall.
 | After noon yesterday black clouds came l up from the west, without thunder, lightning or wind. At 4:15 o'clock the l clouds appeared to have opened directly | over Birmingham, and there began a | downpour. The rain didn't begin with pattering showers; it began with flood, falling in wide-sweeping waves, and fall ing as gently as sheets of cloth might fall.
 That was the phenomenon of a phenome- nal rainfall, the gentleness of it. So softly | did it fan so like an autumnal shower, | that the streets were flooded almost before any one realized that an extraordinary fall of rain had begun.
 Within five minutes there were roaring floods along the sidewalks. Within ten minutes the openings to the sewers were insufficient to allow the water to escape,
  Within fifteen minutes these lakes, at many crossings, covered the entire road ways of the streets. Five minutes later water was running into many houses. Lakes formed in Thirty Minutes At the end of thirty minutes, these brief periods being actually noted by clock, some sections of the streets were deep lak S and others rivers. At Eighteenth street and Second avenue there was lake sixty yards long, At Fourth avenue and Nine teenth street was the center of a lake extending along both thoroughfares for a block in three directions. trolley car arriving from North Birmingham had to stop above Fox's corner, and one pas senger in hurry got a delivery cart to
 take him to Second avenue. The water at one point reached above the horses knees. Barrels and boxes were floated at the fruit vendors on the "Church" lot. Along Twentieth street from above Fourth avenue on the north to Avenue F
 on the south, distance of three-quarters of a mile, the flood was remarkable, es- pecially at the crossings. At Fifth avenue and Twenty-frst street, in the residential quarter of the city, there was the center of rightangled lake of great extent and three or four feet deep
 in places. One man hurrying to the South ern Club at Fifth avenue and Twentieth street. got the driver of a wagon to con vey him.
 Similar conditions prevailed throughout the more level-lying districts of the city. In the vicinity of St. Vincent's Hospital,
 in front of the hospital and south and
 west, was a lake many acres in extent and
 in some places many feet deep. Downpour sIackened At 4:45 o'clock the downpour slackened
 for a few minutes, and then resumed it's
 heavy volume. After this there was some
 thunder. and lightning of remarkable vividness. The rain poured down until 645. when it began again to slacken, and gradually passed away. Whilst it rained it rained
 Pedestrians hugged the buildings to
 avoid the driving sheets of rain, only to feel cold streams suddenly run down their backs. Tobacco stores soda water places, and saloons were crowded with dripping bedraggled lots of humanity, who impa- tiently waited for the downpour to cease. Wherever there was an awning. stretched the sidewalk became blocked by dripping NOl OHc peTSOu III d huHuiSo had an umbrella; but that didn't matter. Umbrellas were useless The crowds be- came irritable. Two handsomely dressed women in First avenue vainly tried to keep dry, and then lost their tempers, and sped fearlessly out and away, their we'll shod feet seeming to twinkle in the water. Hundreds thousands, of others also got wet and also lost their tempers. H.. and the store people joined the throng eager to get home. The occasional trolley cars were packed with men and women standing up, standing on the seats, hanging on, | dripping, dripping One lovely little woman with a little umbrella waited in | the jam at Nineteenth and Second, waited | long for car. "The cars are stopped!' | she said desperately. T going to walk!'' with a rising infection. she Was Correct Many followed the little womans example took her word about the cars. She was | correct. The cars had stopped. That is to say, all cars from East Lake, East Bir- | mingham, South Highlands, and so on. | Tracks were flooded. Water too deep for | cars.
 | Bedraggled men by hundreds trotted | along with bedraggled women by the hun | dreds and darkness found multitudes still l trotting homeward their weary ways; every | one of them believing that ten feet of rain | had fallen. They were wrong in that esti- mate,. wrong to the extent of about nine | feet eight inches though the official | weather bureau figures were not obtain l able
 To o rs Stopped l For two hours and half trolley cars | were stopped on
 The East Lake line,
 The Lakeview line,