The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1901-09-04
CLEVELAND FLOODED.
Property In East End of Town
Greatly Damaged.

Loss Estimated at ~, zoo, -Cloudburst
Inundated Entire Residence Section, I'm
dermIned Streets, Houses, bridges, Gull
vorts, Washed Bodics From Graves and
Tore Things Up Generally.
CLEVELAND. o.. sept with the
breaking of dawn yesterday morning the
ritizcns Of Cleveland awOke to look upon
a scene of unparalleled devastation and
destruction caused by raging Hood
While the entire city was more or less
affected, the great volume of raging wa
ter vented its anger over the miles ot the
eastern portion and caused an amount
Of damage approXimated at N,oOo'OoO'
The appalling overflow was caused 10y
terrific rain that commenced TO fall snort
ly after . o'clock, turned into periec'
cloudburst between the hours Of ana D.
and then continued with great force uh-
Ill nearly ! o'clock. The Storm accoru-
ing 10 the weather officials, was the
heaviest that ever swept over CleNeiahu
since the establishment of the govern
mcnt bureau in this city over ~ years
ago.
That no lives were lost is nothing short
of n miracle, ms the stories OF thrllllhE
escapes from the water on several OF the
principal resident streets Of the clty are
told. The surging waters spread over
nm area in the east end nearly eight miles
long and n mile and half wide.
Great volumes Of water poured over
from Doan and Gidings Brooks down
Quincy street. swamped Vienna street
rushed like milracc down Lincoln Ave
nue. 10 Euclid Avenue and then on to
Glen Park Place. where houses were
undermined as though built OF straw
and almost incredible damage done TO
streets nnd property.
Over n large share Of the exclusive
residence territory the water varied III
depth from one to six feet. Culyerts
trcstlcs and bridges were torn down ana
for hours nothing seemed capable OF
stemming the tide.
Hundreds of residents who were I'M
prisoncd In their homes like stranded is
lnnders were almost panic stricken. Dan
ger Signals were flashed about the city
ms specdily rs the disabled telephone
system would allow aud the work OF res
che commenced. Rowboats piled back
and forth. assisting whole families from
nerilous positions. hut these proved pitt
fully inadequate aud II was soon found
necessary to 20 to the extreme Of calling
on the life saving crew gfrom the river, a
distance of seven miles. The lfeboats
were quickly loaded on wagons and hur'
ried to the scene Of destruction.
The torrent surged with awful force
for hours in Decring street from Fair
mount TO the Boulevard aud over a
dozen families were pcnned In like rats
In trap with water five and six feet
decp surrounding their homes. At this
point the lifcsaving crew worked vail
antly and assisted by squads Of firemen
and policemen. finally succeeded in land
ing the terror stricken people in places
Of safety. The fear was greatly en-
HANGED by the momentnry expectation
that the great Shaker Heights dam
would break looscc and work terrible de-
struction.
Shortly before noon the torrent under
mined score OF graves In st. Ioseph's
Cemetery ut the corner Of East Madison
and Woodland and the bodies were soon
being tossed about in the water. Fully
a dozen corpscs were washed into the
cutters and have not been recovered up
TO now.
Gordon and Brookside parks on the
l. Al
south side were damaged to an amount
figured nj 100000. Through Glensvilld
the overflow was terribly destructive.
! The loss in the village Is estimated at
100000. y
The street railways will suffer an inn
sense loss The train service on all roads
| was blocked from two TO six hours. The
mail service from the east was completely
tied M from 10 O'Clock in the morning
until o'clock last night, when a train
got through on the Lake Shore.
The vast amount of damage falls upon
the househodcrs within the flooded dis.
trict. The water reached depth Of one
foot or the first floors Of scores Of east
end homes, boiling up from the sewers
and pouring from the streets, carrying
everything that came in its path along
with II.
4 remarkable feature Of the storm
which ceused such terrible destruction
is that mp 10 6 O'Clock yesterday morn
ing hardly drop Of rain fell west OF
WillSol Avenue while during the morn
ing hours the east end was being fairly
swamped in perfect deluge Of rain.
The damage to houses and contents
cannot he estimated for. days but will
aggregate probably half a million. TIL,
Jity will lose heavily on damage t,
streets. culverts, bridges and pavement
over the district covered by the water.