The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1936-04-07
Mass Funerals May Be Held
in Gainesville to Check
Disease.
Continued From Page One)

ing into flooded stream which was
emptying into the city water reser-
voir. Cane Immediately dispatched
several hundred CCC members
through the residential districts
with orders TO call at every house
and command that all water used
for cooking or drinking had to be
boiled
Special trains and trucks brought
in load after load of typhoid,
diptheria and other anti-toxins
which were being administered to
survivors at various centers. A food
shortage that had threatened during
the night was relieved somewhat by
tic arrival Of PWA food supplies in
special trucks. More will arrive
during the day.
-Four hundred PWA workers and
200 CCC members worked in the
wrecked business districts, explor-
ing the remains of buildings and
shoveling debris from the streets.
500 Guardsmen on Duty
Five hundred National Guards
men patrolled all streets, stood guard
at wrecked business houses, assisted
the health authorities, and even fed
some of the homeless. They en-
forced regime the equivalent of
martial law, except that their pris-
oners were turned over to civil au-
thorities for prosecution.
Though the soldiers had orders
to shoot looters, IL men had been
arrested early today for that Of
tense without shot being fired.
Health Orders Stringent
Health regulations, of an emer-
gency nature, were stringent. I'M
munization was compulsory and it
was not unusual for superstitious
and frightened Negroes to bare
their arms unwillingly for the hypo-
dermic needle under the glittering
steel of soldiers bayonet.
These regulations were put into
effect Immediately after the tor
nado, in period of three minutes,
leveled the Gainesville business
district yesterday morning, and
authorities credited the m with pre-
venting major epider tic.
Fires that broke out Immediately
after the storm still were shoulder
ing. The most frightful center of
death was the two-story plant of the
Cooper Manufacturing Co., where 81
of the IS workers, mostly girls, en-
ployed when the storm struck, were
known dead and the bodies of Is
more were believed still in the ruins.
Wild Panic in Factory
From the handful of survivors,
authorities learned the narrowing
details of a wild panic that piled
screaming and dying girls into the
pit of the stairwell where their
bodies were consumed by fire. The
girls had been working at their sew
ing machines stitching pants on the
second floor when the storm hit. A
few minutes before, some one had
raced through the work room,
screaming that a tornado was COM
ing.
There was an instant stampede
for the stairs as the screaming,
twisting wind shook the building.
The stairway was damned when it
collapsed, dumping the girls down
into the pit. Fire broke out immedi-
ately, preventing any from entering.
Last night and early today. bodies,
charred beyond possibility of recog-
milton, still were being removed.
Approximately 100 of the more
critically injured were sent to At
lanta by hospital train last night.
The devastated area was quar-
ter of a mile wide and three and
one-half miles long, comprising al
most half of the city. Red Cross
worker Crane said that his workers
had counted personally 632 totally
wrecked buildings and that "un-
doubtedly" there were MANY more,