Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-03-26
Food Is Badly Needed.

Food Is Badly Needed.
The imperative need today is for food
and medical supplies. The great de-
| mand for food exhausted the emergency
supplies in the outskirts Of the city
| and survivors now are depending en-.
! tirely on what may be brought in dur
ing the day.
1t is not believed the rescuers will
| be able to make any advance into the
| flooded district today, but will have to
content themselves with saving those
| who were marooned within a few doors
of the waters edge.
More than 10000 persons either were
unable to reach their homes or held in
| their waterlogged houses were unable
| to reach land
Washed Away With Homes.
Most of the business houses and nearly
all of the residences had occupants las,
| night. Downtown the Offices were filled
with men, fathers unable to get home. and
on the upper floors and on some of the
| roofs of the residences were helpless WON.
en- and children. Hundreds of houses
substantial buildings In the residence dis
tricts, many of them with helpless occu-
pants. have been washed away
The electric light plants were put out
or business early Yesterday and total
darkness, coupled with a torrential down.
pour, added to the horrors Of the nigh,
Famine also became an immediate possf-
bility.
John III. Patterson president ofithe Ma
tlonal Cash Register Company. who head
ed the relief work in the south end of the
city, sent out an appeal for food supplies
and for doctors and medicine. Last
cash register offices.
fire which started from an explosion
IN the Meyers Ice Cream Company near
wyoming street spread and burned the
block on South Park, block from wy
oInlng. another fire burned big down
town block.
Danger of Typhoid Epidemic.
The breaking of the Tarleton reservoir.
which supplies the drinking water. left
the city without water, and physicians
declared there was great danger Of ty-
phoid in the use of the flood water.
There were no boats in Dayton which
could breast the burrent, and those on the
outside early gave up any attempts to
reach the business section.
At Wyoming street ON the south side,
where the National Cash Register Com,
pany centefed it's efforts, many saved
their lives by creeping on a telephone
cable a hundred feet above the flood.
AT nrst l1nemen crept along the cables
carving tow ropes to which 1at-bot
toned boats We're attached. When the
hood became SO fierce that the boats
no longer We're able to make way against
II. men and women crept along the
cables to safety. Others, less daring,
saw darkness fall and gave I'M hone
of rescue. Those willing to risk their
lives In the attempt to rescue found
themselves helpless in face of the water.
Inc hrst to seek safety by sliding
aiong the cables was man. Then came
TOUR women. The first of the women
was Mrs. Luella Meyers She is widow.
with one SON. boy in knee breeches.
he got on the wire and with the agility of
q cat was soon across. But Mrs Mey-
ers' when over the boiling torrent. swayed
as though faint, slipped and the crowd
stood by with bated breath.
Climbs Hand Over Hand.
BY a lucky chance her senses cama
back to her so that she could grasp one
of the wires. Hand over hand, she was
able slowly to pull herself to the near
est pole. where she rested before again
making the trial. This time she did not
falter. but when she was picked IN nv
the rescuers at the farthest pole toward
safety she was limp from nervous and
physical exhaustion.
Then came two more women, and un-
der the advice OF the people standing on
safe ground they kept looking up and
were not subjected to the fafntness of
the first woman passenger. Then came
a young man and his wife. The wife he
sent first, and when she reached safety
she refused to get into the ambulance
without her baby.
Another five minutes and her husband
had been brought out to safe ground. He
had his baby in a FELLOWSHIP and the
youngster celebrated his arrival to safe
ground by lusty yell. Others followed
to safety.
The National Cash Register Company
plant, on high hill, offered the only ha-
ven in the south end. Three women be-
came mothers in the halls of its Office
Apple. was one of the concentration
points.
Fifty Thousand In Flood District.
The worst of the flooded district in
cluded all of the north and west of Day :
ton, all of the downtown section. the
,, South Side. as far as Oakwood. and all
of the residence suburb of Glendale The
district has a normal population of more
than $4,000
At the edges of the inundated districts
the water ran from eight to ten feet
deep. Judging by this, that would be
twenty or thirty feet downtown. While
| those marooned in the offices and hotels
| were in no immediate danger Of drown
ing, there was no way by WHICH food or
drinking water could reach them until
| the flood receded
Those in the residences, however, were
In constant danger both by food and
| fire. First, the frazier buildings swept into
| the stream, many showing the faces OF
women and children peering from the
windows. These were followed by more
substantial brick buildings, until it be-
| came evident that no house in the flood
| zone was safe. The houses, as a rule
lasted but a few blocks before disinte-
grating.
| The body of one gray-haired woman
| f1oated down the stream only few feet
| from the watchers at South Park street
/ The body caught on q guard rope, but
swept clear. and was gone before it could
/! be recovered.
Reports Several Hundred Dead.
COLUMBUS. Ohio. March as.-The
| number of dead will reach several
1 hundred in Dayton, according to a
telephone message Gov. Cox received
from Operator Bell of the Bell Tele-
phone Company at Dayton this morn
ing. Reports concerning the number
of fatalities have been exaggerated, the
operator told the governor, yet, he
| said, conditions there beggar descrip-
/ tion.
| Only one sizeable building has thus col
lapsed, SO far as the watchers in the
| telephone Office can learn. This struc-
ture. an old one. was three-story af-