Waterbury evening Democrat., 1906-04-19

nsously in many places. The Ire de pertinent promptly responded to the
 first calls for aAd. but 1t was found that the water mains had been rendered useless by the underground movement. Banned by light breeze, the flames quickly spread, and soon many blocks were seen to be doomed.
 Then dynamite was rssorted to. and the sound of frequent explosions added to the terror of the people. All efforts to stay the progress of the fire, how ever, proved futile. The south side of Market street. from Ninth street to the bay was soon ablaze, the fire covering { a belt two blocks wide. On this, the main thoroughfare of the city, are b. cated many of the finest edifices in the city, including the Grant, Parrott, Flood, Call, Examiner and Monadnock buildings, the Palace and Grand hotels and numerous wholesale houses.
 At the same time the commercial es- tabaishments and banks north of Mar ket street were burning. The burning district in this section of the city ex- tended from Sansome street to the water front and from Market street to Broadway. Fires also broke out in the Mission, and the entire city seemed to be in flames
 There was an interval of three hours between the first and second shocks, the latter finishing the destruction of buildings unsettled by the first.
 A great loss to the fire brigade was Chief Sullivan, who was mortally hurt early in the fight.
 Although water has been secured to the firemen in many sections. the fire is by no means under control It is rag ing around Pine and Montgomery streets, and the Western Union build ing has been abandoned to it's fate.
 Practically all the wholesale district has been destroyed by the Ire, and the flames are spreading into the Hayes valley district, a residence sec tion of San Francisco. St. Ignace's cathedral was among the buildings which was destroyed. The whole dis trict in the vicinity of the postoffice and mint have been destroyed.
 The Palace hotel is destroyed. The Postal Telegraph and the Western Un- ion buildings and the magnificent new Union Trust company building, eleven stories high, have been dynamited.
 The papers in Oakland estimate the dead at from 800 to TOO and 10000 homeless.
 The flames, famed by the rising breeze, swept down the main streets until within a few hundred feet of the ferry depot, the high tower of which stood at dangerous angle. The big wholesale grocery establishment of Peck & Co. was on fire from cellar to roof. and the heat was so op- pressive that passengers from the fer ryboats were obliged to keep close to the waters edge in order to get past the burning structure.
 A thousand men from the Presidio arrived downtown to patrol the city streets. The Thirteenth infantry a thousand strong arrived from Angel island little later and went on patrol duty at once. The soldiers have been ordered to shoot down thieves caught in the act of robbing the dead and to guard with their lives the millions of dollars worth of property which has been placed in the streets that 1t may escape the ravages of the flames.
 One of the first orders issued by Chief of Police Dinan was the closing of every saloon in the city. This step is taken to prevent drink crazed men from rioting in the city streets.
 That the country and the world have received news of the San Francisco disaster is due in part to the courage of the telegraph operators there, who stuck to their posts and continued to send news and other messages in spite of great personal danger.
 The operators and officials of the Postal Telegraph company remained in the main office of the company, at the corner of Market and Montgomery streets, opposite the Palace hotel, un- til they were ordered out of the build ing because of the danger from the dy- namite explosions in the immediate vi- cinity.
 The men at once proceeded to this place. across the bay. and took posses sion of the office there. The company is operating seven wires from Oak land. All messages from the city must be taken across the bay in boats. W. C. Swain, an electrical engineer in the service of the Postal company, return ed several times to the main building in San Francisco and got in communi- cation east. He said he was surround ed by severe explosions of Illuminating and sewer gas.
 The Postal building was not wholly destroyed. It was surrounded by fire on three sides. The cable apparatus of the Postal company was moved to the cable hut on the beach, near the Cliff House. The cable service is working all right.
 The destruction of the Telephone building in San Francisco has broken communication with this city.
 The Southern Pacific is doing its ut- most to get people out of the city and Is not charging refugees for transpor- tation.
 The sheds over the Southern Pacidc's long wharf on San Francisco bay have completely collapsed. Many of the bunkers fell into the bay. carrying with them thousands of tons of coal.