Los Angeles herald., 1906-04-24
STORM DRENCHES
CHERRIES HOMES
WIND AND RAIN BRING FUR
THEIR SUFFERING
Survivors of Worlds Greatest CaIam-
ity Pass Night in Parks and
Other Improvsed Camp
ing Places
By Associated Press.

BY Associated Press.
SAN FRANCISCO, April ga
drenching rain fell upon San Fran
cisco last night.
From midnight until o'clock it
poured and drizzled at intervals while
a high wind added a melancholy ac-
compartment, whistling and signing
about the ruins of the buildings in the
burned district.
Five days ago when the fire
catastrophe was in its infancy this
downpour would have been regarded
-as mercr and godsenG1SThis morn
ing 1t could be regardedsin no other
light than an additional calamity.
1t meant indescribable suffering to
the tens of thousands of homeless peo-
pie camped on the naked hills and in
the parks and open places of the city
Few of these were provided with
waterproof covering. For the most part
their only protection from the wet was
a thin covering of sheeting tackled up
on improvised tent poles.
Increases Suffering
Through this water poured as through
a sieve, wetting the bedding and soak
ing the ground upon which they lay.
When it is understood that thousands
upon thousands of delicately nurtureG
women and infants in arms and old
and feeble people were in this plight,
nothing need be added to describe the
misery of their condition.
The downpour has aggravated the al
ready unsanitary condition of the camps
and will doubtless add great numbers
of pneumonia cases to those already
in the regular and temporar yhospitals
of the city.
The guards in charge of the camps
did what they could to relieve the dis
tress. Wherever covering could be had
for the women and children it was
taken advantage of.
They were housed in the chill and
cheerless churches, garages and barns
in the regular and temporary hospitals
fortunate enough to save their homes
were called upon to take care of these
unfortunates.
With few exceptions these people re-
sponded rapidly to the new call made
upon them and where they did not
the butt ends of Krag rifles quickly
forced a way through inhospitabe
doors.
To Provide Shelter Tents
While the storm has added to the diff
ficuties of the general committee and
especially to those having in charge
the care of the sick, the sanitation of
the city and the housing of the home
less, it has been a spur to even greater
effort to bring order out of the chaos
prevailing. Regular shelter tents will
be provided as we'll as cots standing
off the ground. 1t is realized that these
provisions are imperative as much so
as the providing of food.
After several hours of clear weather
there was another precipitation at 6 a.
m and again at . o'clock the fall was
resumed and continued at intervals
throughout the day.
OF individual Instances of suffering
the number is legion, but one will tell
the story of them all.
A Sad, Sad Story
About o'clock, when the rain had
been falling heavily for an hour, mid
die aged man, white faced in his dis
tress and fatigued, apeared at the head
quarters of the general committee.
He had walked two miles from his
camping place in the park to make an
appeal for his suffering wife and little
ones. AS he told of their distress the
tears welled up in his eyes and coursed
down his cheeks.
They were, he said without covering
other than a sheeting overhead and
were lying on the naked ground, their
bodies protected only by quilt and
blanket, Wnlcn OF all MS nouSeHOlu peu-
ding, were all he had managed to save.
These had quickly been soaked and
while unwilling to complain on his own
account, he had been unable to listen
to the walls of his little ones and had
tramped all the way from his camping
place to the committee headquarters
in the forlorn hope that they might find
some means of getting his family shell
tered