The Sentinel=record., 1914-01-16
BURSTING DAM RELEASES SOLID WALL OF WATER WHICH lN-
 UNDATES VILLAGES.
THOUSANDS SAFE IN BILLS
Early Warnings Enable Residents of the Valley to Seek Safety, but Cold Weather Causes Much sufferino Among Refugees.

Cumberland, Md, Jan. 15.-Huddled in rude shacks and about hlazinp camp fires, hundreds of flood refugees tonight watched and waited in the West Virginia hills, while the north ern branch of the Potomac river. swol. len to an icy flood, swept through their homes in the towns that dot the valley below.
 A wall of water, starting from the broken dam of the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company, on Stoney Creek, moved down to the Potomac. inundated the town of Schell. w. Va. where the two streams meet, and started a flood wave, laden with wreckage and ice down the Potomac valley.
 Warnings of the approaching flood sent the residents of small towns along the river scurrying to safety in the hills, where tonight from yant- age points they peered through the darkness in an icy gale toward the swollen waters below.
 Telegraph and telephone communi- cation was cut off by the flood dur Ing the day, but was re-established tonight. Rumors of several men caught in the waters at Shaw, w. Va. which could not be confirmed, were the only reports of casualties attend ing the flood. The flood warning emptied the town of Shaw and sent many residents of .Blainek. Harrison, kitsmiller and other small places hur- rying to the ridges. Fear that the waters night rise still further prevent ed many refugees from returning to their homes, even in towns where It, tie damage was done.
 The flood wave apparently exhaust cd its energy in a twenty-mile dash down the valley of the Stoney Creek, after bursting the dam at Schell This valley, however, was virtually unin- habited. It was owned by the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company as a right-of-way and watershed.
 The big dam, which impounded lake five miies long and which was sixty-five feet high. had been weak ening for several days. Last night when it began to crumble a farmer from the mountain village of Mount Storm rode down the valley warning the few inhabitants. A part of the big structure gave way early today, and at noon the greater part of the face of the dam had been carried away.
 The released weight of water in d wall-like wave swept down to SchelI. Where the roadbed of the Western Maryland railroad was washed our and traffic was tied up.
 Below Schell the torrent joined the Potomac river and increased the height of the river by from three to eight feet between ScheI and Cum berland, distance of seventy miles. The Potomac was filled with ice and this, with wreckage and log booms, torn from their mooring, added force to the flood
 Fearful lest the mass of wreckage pile up and pen the rushing waters. the authorities and railroad officials tonight dynamited several small bridges in the valley. Tonight ridges along both sides of the rushing tor rent for seventy miles were dotted with camp fires and lanterns of ref ugees and miners and lumbefmen from the hills Later the re-establlsh- ed telegraph line from Schell brought the reassuring news that the water was subsiding, but refugees still clung to temporary shacks and shelters above the flood.
 Officials here tonight estimated that property along the path of the flood had been damaged to the extent of $2a0000 To this was added thou sands of dollars worth of logs car