Okolona messenger. (Okolona, Miss.) 1900-current, 1911-10-05
1000 PERSONS PERISH
in FLOOD AND FIRE
Three Pennsylvania Towns Wiped Out--Fire
Adds Horror to the Flood.
Five Hundred Millions of Gallons of Water Break
Through Dam, Leaving Death and De-
struCtion in Its Path.
Streets Seethe in Flame.

strong wind, communicated to the near
est house.
Streets Seethe in Flame.
In ten minutes a dozen other gas pipes
had burst and were pouring their deadly
inlammable fluid into the air. Men who
had rushed forward in the hopes of doing
some good, were overcome and fell, while
others were caught in the flames and in
cinerated.
The street became a glowing hell, and
there was no salvation for those who
CHANGED to be near. How many persisted
ut this point is not known, but one es-
innate places it at a score.
Austin had little fire protection at the
best, and with these swept away by the
flood and no one left to man the little
apparatus the town possessed the prog
ress of the flames was uninterrupted.
Rapidly they swept from house to house,
leaping streets and alleys, and, fed by
the continual spray from gas mains,
there was no staying their progress.
They licked up what the water had left.
Many persons, crushed and helpless in
the wreck of buildings only partly de-
stroyed by the water, were consumed in
the flames. Their shrieks could be heard
by the helpless ones, who, awakened from
their paralysis by the scenes about them,
endeavored to save a life here and there
where it seemed possible. They were
driven back by the deadly fumes of the
gas or the heat of the flames and half an
hour after the flood had passed they
stood on the hillside, pitiful in their ina
bility to do anything but bemoan the
fate of their friends. Women and chill
dren there were among the wounded and
dying, but among the scores of men who
might at other times have braved death
to save the lives of the unfortunate
there was none to dare,
Wreckage Heaped in R. R. Shops.
Down at the shops of the Buffalo and
Susquehanna railroad, history was in the
making. The buildings were below the
banks Of Freeman Run and were more
substantial than most of the houses
which had been swept away. When the
great mass of crushed and broken tim
beers, representing the homes of a few
minutes before, came crashing down they
lodged against the shops. The impac
was so great that the buildings shiveret
and the walls were crushed in, but tn
frame work stood and formed a barrie
against which lotsam and jetsam of tn
flood found lodghent.
Here, as elsewhere, the natural ga
} pipes burst and as the shops were in or
} Grafton, fire was quickly communicate
to the heterogeneous mass. Men wer
; caught before they could leave thei
| machines. Some of them were crushed t
J death without a warning, but others les
r favored of fortune were pinned dow
+ and met a most horrible death in tn
l rapidly kindled flames.
Nearby was the plant of the Standar
Lumber Company. It had on hand
large stock of stove wood ready for shil
+ ment. 1t was the fuel the flames mos
= desired and when the pipes burst thel
e and the burning gas broke through tt
n building it was soon destroyed. Her
t too, debris had been piled and the luCl
t less ones who had been swept dow
d stream met death at this point.
For hours the machine shops and Il
o lumber plant burned and the odor
burning flesh was so strong as to dri'
# many persons from the scene. Ho
many died here will never be known, b.
d counting the employees Of the plants al
If the persons in the flood it will not fa
1T short of 200.
IS Tons of Lime Stacked.
y Here the first organized effort at reli
a was made. Maddened by the sights abo
Is him, one man, with tears streaming dov
le' his cheeks, cried for volunteers to sa
the lives of men whose cries for he
Of were gradually growing fainter. T
y wreck of the Austin Hardware Compal
had been swept from its location on Ma
n street to the lumber mill. Here we
d. buckets in abundance, and there was t
it, lime stream, still swollen, although t
lg force of the flood had passed. Seizi
k a bucket, this unknown hero dashed in
to the stream, filled it with water, al
is calling for help, ran toward a poi
he where it appeared n man might
90 saved. Others followed his example. 3
to no purpose. Gas and heat combir
to drive them back, and they eventua
er gave up the battle.
al The blazing pile continued to bt
through the night, the most conspicuc
m, and most deadly spot in this valley
in death. Gradually the cries for help
err the groans of dying men grew faint
TX and finally the great mas of debris Q
ex- the remnants of the burning buildil
int became nothing more than a huge pile
a glowing Goals.