The Corvallis times. (Corvallis, Or.) 1888-1909, 1903-06-20
CLEARING THE DEBRIS.
THE TERRIBLE CONDITIONS
PRESENTED AT STRICKEN
HEPPNER.
Dragging Bodies out of the Drift
and Mud-Men, Hogs, Wom-
en- and Children in In
discribable Mass
Other News.

SAASSAAS0OAS 49,
Other News.
Heppner. Or, June 16.-Scenes
at Heppner are indescribable in
their grewsomeness, their anguish,
their awful desolation. No pen can
exaggerate the horrors they present.
Every heap Of debris may contain
a human form 10 decomposition.
Many do reveal such spectacles
when uncove,ed, and meantime
Willow Greek, as if to mock the
dead has returned to a purling
brooklet, and the courthouse at ev-
cry hour peals forth its dolorous
note into the ears of the bereaved.
An army Of men and horses are
sitting great wastes of debris. Three
hundred bodies have been found
and there are men who say the
work is only half begun. An army
Of women take charge of the bodies
as they are borne out of the wreck
age by the straining arms of men.
An arm, a leg, a toe, finger. a lock
of hair, tuft of clothing-these are
harbingers of horror beneath the
mud. Babies and little children
lie their buried, with many cash
or biuise on theif tender bodies.
Forms of women frequently come
to light bereft of all clothing save
where corset shields them from
the gaze of anxious searchers. Cloth
ing of men is lees frequently torn
away. The bodies are borne to
Roberts Hall to be washed and
dressed by women, to be shrouded
in coarse white cloth, and to be laid
in seugh wooden boxes. There is
no time for ceremony. It's the
grim reality of death. And women
who would faint at scenes one
thousandth part as awful, obey the
mandates Of necessity without q
finch. The floor swims with the
half-diluted mud that drips from
the victims. but the living patter
through it or sweep it out when it
gets too deep. The rough boxes 60
to the cemeteries, not singly in
hearses, but many at time, piled
high in wagons.
Social lines are all erased in the
disaster. The aristocracy of the
town delves in the mud with the
lowly, and with the same CRIME on
its faces. Ali eat the same enervat-
ing food. The city and county Off
cials are supreme authority. One
of them fred man to work yester-
day at the point of pistol. Any
person detected in looting must bs
shot on the spot.
Medicines are not needed here,
nor physicians, nor nurses. The
town must be cleansed if 1t would
escape pestilence. 1t must have
more men to clean up and provi.
sions to feed the men would be
right welcome. Many families are
entirely destitute, all their worldly
possessions having been swept a.
way. In many a family only a
father or mother or an orphan is
left. Help would tend to tighten
the gloom of all such as these.
Houses crushed and telescoped
beyond recognition. buildings twist
ed from their foundations, deposit
ed in streets or on alien property,
one-fourth, or one-half, or one mile
away; household goods strewn in
every direction in reeking mud !;
trees two feet in diameter uprooted
and woven in impeded drift into
all kinds of awful fantastic shapes,
bodies of men and horses and cattle
and pigs all cast in indiscriminate
ruin-such is Heppner of today.
All persons say that the crest of
the flood was upon the town within
three or four minutes after the
danger was perceived. Most of the
people were in their houses. Most
of the dwellings were near the bank
of the stream, and the day being
Sunday, the hour being dinner
time, and heavy rain falling, all
caused them to pen themselves
within doors. The people were
therefore caught like rats in a trap.
The whole row of houses, next the
creek was swept away. Spectators
of the calamity describe the struc-
lures as falling like card houses.
The dwellings were tossed about
like bobbins, and most of them fell
completely to pieces. The town
had perhaps over ESQ houses, near
ly 200 Of which were demolished.
The whole husinass mart Of tha town