Bisbee daily review., 1912-08-20

Doing damage estimated at several
 thousand dollars and that will take
 several weeks to repair the heaviest
 rain of the year fell in Bisbee yester,
 day, beginning shortly before noon
 and lasting an hour When it ceased the streets of the city presented the | appearance of thirty years ago. when l they were nothing but the raw and | jagged beds Of the pristine canyons
 The day opened fair but as early
 as nine o'clock a cloud was lowering over the city south and west. It | quickly gathered, and about noon the | rain began to fall growing in inten. | sity and an hour later diminishing un | til the sun shOne on the surface of | the muddy torrents that swept through the streets.
 Only the bulkheads and other pre-
 cautionary measures prompetd by | past experience saved the city from | damages that could have been recS- oned only in sums of tens of thou sands of dollars instead of thousands. On Brewery gulch all bulkheads were put up in the business houses on that street. and they escaped with minor damage. Stores on the street level
 are all paved with cement. and with
 the exception of the mud deposit left no great damage was done.
 The amount os rain that fell yes
 terdav. according to the government
 record kept by the Reverend Priteh- ard. was only 1.S3 inches. This was at the PritChard residence but the | observer stated that the rain was a 1 great deal heavier down town. proba- bly, as much as three inches. The pre- cipitation down town, moreover. was sudden. and the ground having been thoroughly wet by the rain Sunday af teTHoon the larger part of it swept over the city as flood water.
 Rain at the government obserya- tion station. Sunday afternoon meas ured 257 inches. which was abOu: | general for the district
 The rain yesterday was heaviest on the north slcpc Of the hills south of the west section of the city. and it swept down the hill and over the city. | leaving the streets and sidewalks bur | fed, in places. more thar a foot under deposits of silt. The Sunday rain was heavy and evenly distributed over the canyon district. but it did not
 wash 'as badly as yesterdays rain, since a portion of it was absorbed by the dry earth.
 The street and sewer department | forces were augmented by the employ ment of additional laborers yesterday l to take care Of the repair work. The ! street department had twsnty-eight men at work yesterday. but it's work was inteTfered with and the damage | aggravated by the heavy rain yester day afternoon. Street Supervisor To- renzo Wright stated yesterday after noon that he would have a force of | 35 men at work repairing the damage to the streets today. but that 1t proba- l bly, require two weeks or more to clear the debris and repair the breaks
 in the unpared streets.
 Only the paved sections Of the streets. Tombstone COnyon road and the newly oiled Naco road escaped | damage. In the canyon, near the l Lincoln school building, the flood wa | ters deposited silt and rocks estimat- ! ed by the street supervisor to be a | thousand wagon loads. The canyon road going I'D School hill just north of the residence of Judge High was ! totally destroyed and yesterday It 
 l presented the appearance of rocky | gulch transDlanted rom mountain l fastnesses. The street. a marrow one,
 will have to be reconstructed. The first several hundred feet of the street | connects Temby avenue with the lower streets, and is the only outlet ! for Temby avenue traffic.
 Damage to streets in the business
 section was limited to silt and rub | hish deposited, and this will be | cleared of today. Chihuahua hill de
 posted its customary number of tons of rubbish On Naco road.
 A raging torrent poured down the
 gulch hack of the post office and rose 10 Q height of a foot on the steel shutters put up to keep the water ont Of the post office. The greater volume of the water from this gulch
 gas deviated eastward by a bank that
 had been erected there several
 weeks ago. This water swept around