The Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1912-1917, 1912-09-06
TH|RTY-N|NE ARE
DEAD IN STORM
Floods Sweep Large Sections of
Three States.
PROPERTY LOSS Is HEAVY
Hundreds of Families Are Homeless
in Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, and
West Virginia-Many Bridges
Are Destroyed.

Pittsburg, Sept 3.-Thirty-nine per-
sons are known to have been drowned
yesterday in foods that swept valleys
In western Pennsylvania, Ohio and
West Virginia, causing property loss
estimated high in the millions. The
death toll may mount higher. Tie
heavy storms Of Sunday night
caused many streams in this district
to rise above their banks, and the val
leys soon became the beds of wild
rivers, which swept into destruction
all lives and property in their paths.
Heavy electrical storms through the
day added TO the food and lightning
started many fires throughout the
flooded sections.
Hundreds of families are homeless
and shivering on the damp hillsides.
Railroad traffic is greatly impeded and
many cities are in total darkness,
both electric and gas plants being
flooded. Hundreds of industrial work
ers are idle and the men will be idle
for weeks until the damage can be re-
paired.
Among the towns which suffered
principally from the rise of water
were Washington, Beaver, Burgetts-
town, Canonsburg and many smaller
places throughout the CHARTERS, Cher
ry and Beaver valleys, while in West
Virginia, Golfers and surrounding ter
ritory suffered principally. The dead
at various points thus far ascertained
number:
At Holidays Cove, 6; at Golfers, 9;
at Cherry Valley, 10; at Burgettstown,
g.
Railroad traffic received probably
the most damage from the down
pour Traffic between Steubenville,
Wheeling, and Pittsburgh over the
Pan Handle road was knocked out,
and it is reported that it will take
week to place the tracks in normal
condition
General Manager Peck and D.
Frank Crawford, superintendent of
motive power, left Pittsburg at
o'clock yesterday afternoon on spec
ial trial and managed to push their
way through, partly on foot, as far
as New Cumberland Junction.
Mr.. Peck summed up the known
damage done the Pan Handle railway
as follows:
On the main line four steel girder
bridges were carried away, including
the masonry. The first abutment of
the stone arch bridge at Holidays
Cove gone. On the New Cumberland
branch two steel girder bridges
washed away and bridge No. 35, three
miles this side of Hanlits, on the
main line, completely undermined
The west Virginia line is just east
TO Golfers and thence westward for
seven miles the tracks are absolutely
gone. There are holes thirty feet
deep in the roadbed. Debris covers
the Golfers yards several feet high.
At Holidays Cove, the collection of
twisted trees, corn stalks and hetero-
geneous masses of debris is even
worse in appearance than at Golfers
Telegraph poles were carried away
in rushing torrent, or the cross yards
left dangling in the air with the
wires hanging useless.
Besides the railroad bridges de-
stroyed, the county structures suf-
fered badly. Three in the vicinity
of Golfers were utterly demolished
and one solid concrete bridge could
be seen grotesquely marooned, as 1t
seemed, because every vestige of an
approach to it had been swept along.
Mr.. Peck said the loss to the Pan
Handle had been estimated by it's en-
gineer at $150000, 100000 of which
amount represented the cost of re-
placing the masonry of the bridges.