The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-03
Now Thought That Death List Will Hardly Reacil
 One Hundred and Fifty
MORBIDLY CURIOUS
 ARE TURNED AWAY
Laborers Are Badly Needed to Assist in Work of Removing the Bodies From Beneath
 the Debris

loss of life in the flood of Saturday, Il
 is conceded, however. that several, fAnot
 many visitors and strangers, were m tle town that day and undoubtedly perishee l Including them and allowing for ineVitas
 ble errors in compilation. the total ofA 1 dead will probably reach 15o. Twenty-one of the bodies recovered nave been identified and of the missing
 hope is entertained that some may yet be accounted for.
 l The problem tonight is to recover the dead from the thousands of tons of dep-
 ris choking the narrow valley To do so
 beforeQit becomes necessary to burn the ruins and save the living from an epi7 demic an army of laborers must reaei,
 the town within the next 36 hours, offi=
 cials say. Otherwise the torch may trans- form the wreckage into the pyre of most
 of those who have perished. The single line of wire out of Austiii carried an urgent plea for workmen to
 the mayors of Buffalo, Pittsburg and Philadelphia. Samuel G. Dixon, state
 commissioner of healthy supreme in con,
 mand at Austin, wired each of the may ors:
 
 rescue work. Desire about 400 sent in a bunk train. Please advise us what you can do. Work consists of recovering bodies from ruins. Please telegraph what assistance you can render" Encouraging responses are hoped fer
 early tomorrow.
 Give us our dead,'' is Austins cry. voiced by State Senator Baldwin, who iost I 1 Only the body of his father, John E.
 Baldwin, had been recovered tonight. | "I speak for the people of Austin,' he | said ''The state of Pennsylvania owes
 us the bodies of our loved ones. For is 1 hours they have been In the ruins. how
 much longer will the commonwealth leave l them there? The state should have l00
 men working here now | The nine mile railroad leading here from | Healing Summit was given over today to | rescue and relief work. Locked cat.s l pulled out of summit for Austin. When l they reached here the workers were de ' taified Some were sent back. Every man on Austin's streets except news paper men were conscripted for service. but despite the efforts ot the authorities 1 only $50 were working at sunset l Smouderng flames in the debris burst
 out anew in the wreckage this afternoon
 but 1t is not believed any bodies were l burned
 1 Austin united to a man against the suggestion that 1t may be necessary to | put the torch to her ruins. Feeling runs high and there is no foretelling the re- suit. Pennsylvania constabulary holds the town in it's grasp tonight. however. and the troopers will remain here until Com
 missioner Dixon gives the word to go. The flood swept valley offers no shelter for the laborers expected tomorrow and unless they come in bunk cars they can
 not be cared for. Eight homeless men slept last night on the floor Of house spared by the waters; two women and five children. all refugees, slept in the
 room above them, while the household of five hudded into two remaining rooms This is but typical of conditions every where in the flood zone. Food and clothing reached Austin m
 carload lots today and there was enough to eat for all
 Across the street from the morgue life insurance companies nailed their shingles to a tree near a small shack today top ping them with a sign, Inquire Within file of weeping women took turns al recording their claims. A call for aid came today from Cos tello. three miles below. Conditions there
 parallel the situation here the distinction being that the town is much smaller and less damaged than Austin, While the death list at Costello is but two. It Is believed all others escaped. Austin Pa. october 2.-Shortly before
 o'clock today State Commissioner Dixon issued an order that nobody but officials
 and likewise officials of the state nedlta
 board other state officials. and newspa-
 per correspondents of the Associated
 Press, should be allowed in the flooded
 zone.
 This order was issued because news Of
 the disaster had attracted thousands of persons to Austin from both north ana south Few of these sightseers brought in anything to eat and they have appl'ed to the public commssary in such mum bers that flood victims have been crowd- ed out and but for the citizens commf- tee the deserving would have to go hum gry.
 About the time the restrictive order was issued a train load of sightseers arrived
 but nobody was allowed to go near the
 ruins except relatives or friends of clti- zens.
 This afternoon the state health de-
 partment sent men to Heating Summit
 on the Buffalo and Susquehanna railroad and the Pennsylvania Erie with instrnc-
 tions to go through trains there and nou- fy passengers that only those having bus mess in Austin would be allowed to en- ter.
 To Care for Children Bromley Wharton, secretary of the state board of charity and Herbert M. Peck of Philadelphia, special agent of the ChiIdren's Aid society. are arranging to care for children orphanized by the flood. For the present they will be put in re- ceiVing homes. and latterly placed In per manent homes.
 ''In no case will any of these children
 be put in aims houses,' said Mir. Whar-
 ton.
 The first actually effective step toward an organized movement to eXtricate the community from It's desolation and grief
 was accomplished today when Samuel q.
 Dixon. state commissioner of health, .p- pointed a committe which immediately started systematic work
 An hour after the committee was selected a steam derrick and 100 men were at
 work in the main street. Telegraph poles and logs were torn from the ruins and
 laid aside while the laborers worked to clear the Buffalo and Susquehanna tracks
 down the valley to Costello.
 Another hundred men started work at
 Costello to meet the crew from this place.
 A hundred bridgemen constructing
 two bridges to replace steel structures washed away.
 The railroad tracks must be replaced 10 get wreclling trains in and the committee plans to work from either side of these