Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1920-07-15
SW|MS 600 FEET
TO warn train
Section Foreman Braves Raging
Icy Waters to Save $50
Passengers.
SOUTH DAKOTA FLOOD HERO
After Setting tho Danger Signals
Foreman Remembers His Neglisee
and S,vms Back Across 600
Feet Of SwirIing Current.

Omaha.-~Tn the recent South d.
kota floods John Williams. n section
foreman. swan swollen creek at
night in hailstOrm to warn q pas
senger train that a bridge had gone
out. He stripped himself and tied the
danger signals to his back. After he
had set them he approached Il nearby
house, then remembered his negligee
and swan hack across the 800 feet of
swiring current.
The passenger train 1t developed
later, was stopped farther up the road
at point where the railroad men had
little hope of halting 1t. Williams her.
oism, however, was not overlooked by
the railroad officials.
The bridge was the BurlingtOn's
over Hat creek, near Ardmore, S. D.
rhe Hat creek flood tied up traffic for
eight days and cost seven lives and
lid $50O,000 damage to the one road.
Several days after the food the sec
zion foreman was looked up by news
paper man from the city. He found
him directing gang of laborers re-
pairing the waShout.
Williams related how it had been
raining through the previous week
and the April blizzard had left the
ground soaked, so that when the last
storm came on 1t ran off as If from a
ducks back land old Hat creek start
ed on a rampage"
Decided to Swim.
II kept watching the new bridge
over the creek all afternoon" Will
| liams told his visitor, "and the water
kept comm up and comm up until it
reached the ties. Then / got worried
! for fear that the bridge would go out
and went back to town and reported
! it to the operator. He told the dis
patcher at Alliance about it. The tele-
! phone and telegraph wires runnin'
west had all gone down and we
couldn't get Edgemont or anyone west
! of the creek. Jack WEIGH, the dis
patcher at Alliance, talked to me over
/ the railroad phone and asked me If
could get to the west end Of the bridge,
across the creek, and put out red
light and some stop signals so as to
hold the night passenger train. No. 81.
Which was due at nine o'clock. l
told him I'd try, and went back to the
! bridge.
"When I got there again the water
was clear over the top of the bridge.
and it looked to me like one OF the
steel spans had gone out. We tried to
phone the government farm on the
other side to ask them to go out and
put ont red light, but their phone
was gone and we couldn't reach any
body.
"Well, l just figgered the chances
was probably against me gittin' across,
but It was only my life against 100
passengers on No. 40, and | figgered
that the train would be running pretty
fast when they came up to the bridge.
and they might be into 1t before they
saw it, so I walked up the creek
half-mile, stripped off my clothes, tied
nv red lantern, red flag and torpedoes
to my back and swan across.
Swan Back for Clothes.
"There wasn't so many trees out
there. and she was only about 600 feet
wide. but the water was full of hail
stones and cold as h. 1t was
rainin' to beat the band and dark as
blazes. I sure felt good when | hit
that fence on the other side and drug
myself on the bank"
How did you get back to Ard
more?" Williams was asked, after he
had related how he placed the sig
mails.
well, walked up to the govern
ment house, but when l got close to
the office and saw the bright lights
there remembered l didn't have nc
clothes on and l thought I'd make
pretty lookin' sight Dustin In on 'em
like that so l walked back up the
stream and swum back"