The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1913-04-02
OF Narrow Escapes From
Awful Death.
NOTH|NG LIKE THEM EVER TOLD
Dangerous Trips From House
To H0use-Terrible Elk.
periences Met.
DEATH WAS ALWAYS IMMINENT

Layton, u, Marcn o. oVhS
thrilling experiences are told by
those who escaped the awful food
here last week.
Mayor Edward Phillips, who was
reported drowned with his family,
was marooned more than sixty
hours in his home on Mound street
before he was rescued by boats.
The water caught us early Tues
day morning." said Mayor Phillips,
in telling of his experience. During
Tuesday the water was fourteen
feet deep around the house, and
that night | chopped a hole through
the ceiling of a second-story room,
and We spent the night in a little
attic. The big West Side fire was
lust two blocks from us, and when
the wind began to carry burning
EN- bers in our direction il looked
serious. | watched the room near
ly all night. Late Thursday after
noon my wife, daughter, son and
myself were taken out" by boats.
How FIVE people chung for thirty
six hours to telegraph pole, where
they had climbed from a moving
wagon; how a physician, his A.
year-old son and a negro woman
servant were jammed up against a
building and saved only by the
swift current, which kept their dis
abled boat clinging 10 the wall, and
how scores of other people We're
saved, was revealed to-day when
free communication was establish
ed with rescuers who had worked
in the flooded district ever since
the water poured. in last Tuesday
before daylight.
II was patrolling the waters
edge for fires a few hours after the
levee broke when | heard cries for
help down a street where the water
was fifteen feet deep" said William
Carver, captain of an engine COM
pany.
II had seen four women and a
man in moving van which had
been washed for a half mile when
they struck a telegraph pole. The
horses were drowned and the van
was about to tumble over when the
man and women succeeded in
climbing up the pole. All that day
they chung in freezing rain and
sleet. Each took a turn crying for
help. All the next night | heard
their cries, but it was not until
Thursday that boats reached them
and they We're taken off half dead.
when fire broke out at Broad
way and Mound | saw one man in
boat rowing around in circles and,
while the people in the upper floors
of opposite buildings were scream
ing for help, this man was yelling
Twenty-Five dollars a head if you
want to be saved. Twenty-Five dol
lars head Somebody came along
in another boat and threw this man
into the water His boat was then
used to save others"
Capt. Carver said while the fire
was burning in the paint store OPP
posite the Beckel House, at Third
and Jefferson streets, the hotel
guests climbed over the roofs
blocks away. TO the Callahan Bank
building, where, fearing death
from the flames above or the deep
water below, they pulled a cable
out of the elevator and contrived a
possible means of escape. Men were
lowered to the water by the cable.
They swan across stream and fast
ened the cable to the upper floor of
a building opposite. BY this means
a number OF men slid across in mid
men across and after the fire sub
sided. leaving the hotel guests out
of danger, the scheme was aban-
doned.
or the thousands or remarkable
escapes the experience of Miss Flos-
sic Lester, a stenographer, who was
marooned on an overturned moving
van in Edgemont. suburb OF Day.
ton, is considered one OF the oldest.
With several men Miss Lester
was imprisoned on the top OF a
passing van which she mounted
when the flood came Tuesday morn
ing. Eventually the van was over
turned and the party thrown into
the icy waters.
The horses which had been haul
ing the van broke loose and sepa-
rated. swimming for their lives. One
OF them passed close TO the woman.
who Sraenad a dangling sfraD and