Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1915-08-05
Estimates Place Number of Dead as High as 80, and
 Many Missing.
PROPERTY DAMAGE
 IS FOUR MILLIONS
Hundreds of Homes Destroyed When Dam BreakS-DebriS Covers City, and Broken Sewers Add to Danger.
 Mayor Appeals for Destitute.

Erie, Pa, Aug. 4.-With IT known dead, 15 of whom are identified, and with seven missing and known to be dead, though their bodies have not yet been recovered, the death list up to midnight as a rsult of the cloud burst which late yesterday sent flood of raging water through the heart of the city. is 24 although esti- mates of total dead run from 40 to 80.
 The fact is the police have failed to properly handle the task of can vassing the stricken district and the death list which probably will be found to total somewhere between the general estimate of 40 to 80, will undoubtedly be swelled far beyond present figures.
 Scenes at the morgue on Thirteenth street are heart-rending. Scores of grief-stricken men. women and children stand in a row just outside the door, scanning the faces of the dead as they are brought in. With more than 100 families in temporary distress and with the state militia patrolling the flood district, where hundreds of men are search 1 ing for bodies of victims, Erie is now | recovering from the worst cattastrO- phe in it's history. All day long a continuous stream of people has been passed through the morgue, where the bodies dragged from the huge piles of debris have been laid on the floor.
 Out of one family of six, only two | children escaped.
 John Higgins, his wife, 14-year- | old son and a -months-old baby were drowned when their house was lifted from it's foundation and hurled against culvert in the street. 300 Homes Ruined. When Little Mill creek fed by cloudburst. knocked the life breath from the bodies of more than score. perhaps three-score, men and women, it ruined 300 homes, put
 hundreds out of work and heaped up property losses of more than $4,- l 0OO,OO0.
 Among the masses of wreckage, scattered over 27 blocks, are at least 40 unrecovered bodies, according to l estimates. Sewerage connections in | She stricken district are destroyed. A hot sun burned down this after noon on the slime. The stench that
 heralds disease was rising.
 Houses stand on end or are com
 pletely demolished. A dozen street
 bridges have been destroyed. Three
 factories and brewery are com
 pletely out of commission. l hoc nrnn1o. nation asking assistance for suffer-
 CTS. A relief fund has been started.
 The responses have not been note- worthy.
 According to the weather bureau
 here, 5.53 inches of rain fell in Erie
 between and 9 D. m. yesterday. The release of the water held back
 by the dam sent huge wave five
 feet high toward the city, and by the time it reached the first build- ings it was crested with mass Of debris that acted like a huge batter
 .ng ram on everything in it's path.
 Early today gas mains all oyer the l city were cut off and telephone, l street car and electric lighting ser
 vice was paralyzed.
 Charitable societies, hotels and has,
 tily organized shelter clubs gave | refuge to hundreds who saved only their lives and few meager belong
 ings.
 The darkness, the danger of broken l electric wires and the 25-mile current of the flood made the work of rescue
 extremely perilous
 The narrow escape of Fire Chief
 McMahon with four firemen in suc- cessful attempt to rescue three wo- men led to the report of their death.
 but they jumped to safety from sec