The Johnstown Horror!!! Part 24

Hospitals and Morgues.

Those who doubt that many thousands lost their lives in this disaster have not visited the morgues. There are three of these dreadful places crowded so full of the unidentified dead that there is scarcely room to move between the bodies. To the largest morgue, which I visited this morning, one hundred and sixty bodies have been brought for identification. When it is remembered that most of the bodies were swept below the limits of Johnstown, that many more found here have been identified at once by their friends and that it is certain that many bodies were consumed entirely in the fire at the gorge, the fact gives some idea of the extent of the calamity.

The largest morgue is at the Fourth ward school-house, a two-story brick building which stands just at the edge of the high mark of the flood.

The bodies were laid across the school children's desks until they got to be so numerous that there was not room for them, excepting on the floor. Soldiers with crossed bayonets keep out the crowd of curious people who have morbid appet.i.tes to gratify. None of these people are of Johnstown. People of Johnstown do not have time to come to look for friends, and they give the morgue a wide berth. Those who do come have that dazed, miserable look that has fallen to all the residents of the unhappy town. They walk through slowly and look at the bodies and go away looking no sadder nor any less perplexed than when they came in.

One of the doctors in charge at the morgue told me that many of these people had come in and looked at the bodies of their own fathers and brothers and gone away without recognizing them, though not at all disfigured.

"That's Jim."

In some instances it had been necessary for other persons, who knew the people, to point out the dead to the living and a.s.sure them positively of the identification before they could be aroused. I saw a railroad laborer who had come in to look for a friend. He walked up and down the aisles like a man in a trance. He looked at the bodies, and took no apparent interest in any of them. At last he stopped before one of them which he had pa.s.sed twice before, muttered, "That's Jim," and went out just as he had come in. Two other identifications I saw during the hour I was there were just like this. There was no shedding of tears nor other showing of emotion. They gazed upon the features of their dead as if they were totally unable to comprehend it all, and reported their identification to the attendants and watched the body as it was put into a coffin and went away. Many came to look for their loved ones, but I did not see one show more grief or realization of the dreadful character of their errand than this. Arrangements with the morgues are complete and efficient. The bodies are properly prepared and embalmed and a description of the clothing is placed upon each.

Hospital Arrangements.

The same praise cannot be given the hospital arrangements. The only hospital is a small wooden church, in which apartments have been roughly improvised, with blankets for part.i.tions. Only twenty patients can be cared for here, and the list of wounded is more than two hundred. The rest have been taken to the private houses that were not overcrowded with the homeless survivors, to farmers in the country and to outlying towns. Two have died. It did not occur to any one until lately to get any nurses from other places to take care of the patients, and even now most of the nurses are Johnstown people who have lost relatives and have their own cares. These persons sought out the hospital and volunteered for the work.

A Procession of Coffins.

A sight most painful to behold was presented to view about noon to-day, when a procession of fifty unidentified coffined bodies started up the hill above the railroad to be buried in the improvised cemetery there.

Not a relation, not a mourner was present. In fact, it is doubtful if these dead have any surviving relatives.

The different graveyards are now so crowded that it will take several days to bury all the bodies that have been deposited in them. This was the day appointed by the Citizens' Committee for burying all the unidentified dead that have been laying in the different morgues since Sunday morning, and about three hundred bodies were taken to the cemeteries to-day.

It was not an unusual sight to see two or three coffins going along, one after another. It is impossible to secure wagons or conveyances of any kind, consequently all funeral processions are on foot.

Several yellow flags were noticed sticking up from the black wreckage above the stone bridge. This was a new plan adopted by the sanitary corps to indicate at what points bodies had been located. As it grows dark the flags are still up, and another day will dawn upon the imprisoned remains. People who had lost friends, and supposed they had drifted into this fatal place, peered down into the charred ma.s.s in a vain endeavor to recognize beloved features.

Unrecognizable Victims of Fire.

There are now nearly two thousand men employed in different parts of the valley clearing up the ruins and prosecuting diligent search for the undiscovered dead, and bodies are discovered with undiminished frequency. It becomes hourly more and more apparent that not a single vestige will ever be recognized of hundreds that were roasted in the flames above the bridge.

A party of searchers have just unearthed a charred and unsightly ma.s.s from the smouldering debris. The leader of the gang p.r.o.nounced the remains to be a blackened leg, and it required the authoritative verdict of a physician to demonstrate that the ghastly discovery was the charred remains of a human being. Only the trunk remained, and that was roasted beyond all semblance to flesh. Five minutes' search revealed fragments of a skull that at once disintegrated of its own weight when exposed to air, no single piece being larger than a half dollar, and the whole resembling the remnants of shattered charcoal.

Within the last hour a half dozen discoveries in no way less horrifying than this ghastly find have been made by searchers as they rake with sticks and hooks in the smouldering ruins. So difficult is it at times to determine whether the remains are those of human beings that it is apparent that hundreds must be burned to ashes. The number that have found a last resting place beneath these ruins can at the best never be more than approximated.

A Vast Charnel House.

Every moment now the body of some poor victim is taken from the debris, and the town, or rather the remnants of it, is one vast charnel house.

The scenes at the extemporized morgue are beyond powers of description in their ghastliness, while the moans and groans of the suffering survivors, tossing in agony, with bruised and mangled bodies, or screaming in a delirium of fever as they issue from the numerous temporary hospitals, make even the stoutest hearted quail with terror.

Nearly two thousand bodies have already been recovered, and as the work of examining the wreckage progresses the conviction grows that the magnitude of the calamity has not yet been approximated.

The Pile of Debris Still Burning.

The debris wedged against the big Pennsylvania Railroad stone bridge is still burning, and the efforts of the firemen to quench or stay the progress of the flames are as futile as were those of Gulliver's Lilliputian firemen. The ma.s.s, which unquestionably forms a funeral pyre for thousands of victims who lie buried beneath it, is likely to burn for weeks to come. The flames are not active, but burn away in a sullen, determined fas.h.i.+on.

There are twenty-six firemen here now--all level-headed fellows--who keep their unwieldy and almost exhausted forces under masterful control.

Although they were scattered all over the waste places to-day, the heavy work was done in the Point district, where a couple hundred mansions lie in solid heaps of brick, stone and timbers.

One Corpse Every Five Minutes.

Here the labors of the searchers were rewarded by the discovery of a corpse about every five minutes. As a general thing the bodies were mangled and unrecognizable unless by marks or letters on their persons.

In every case decomposition has set in and the work of the searchers is becoming one that will test their stomachs as well as their hearts.

Wherever one turns Pittsburghers of prominence are encountered. They are busy, determined men, rendering valuable service.

Chief Evans, of the Pittsburgh Fire Department, was hustling around with a force of twenty-four more firemen, just brought up to relieve those who have been working so heroically since Sat.u.r.day. Morris M. Mead, superintendent of the Bureau of Electricity, headed a force of sixteen sanitary inspectors from Pittsburgh, who are doing great work among the dead.

How Bodies are Treated.

There are six improvised morgues now in Johnstown. They are in churches and school-houses, the largest one being in the Fourth Ward school-house, where planks have been laid over the tops of desks, on which the remains are placed. A corpse is dug from the bank. It is covered with mud. It is taken to the anteroom of the school, where it is placed under a hydrant and the muck and slime washed off. With the slash of a knife the clothes are ripped open and an attendant searches the pockets for valuables or papers that would lead to identification. Four men lift the corpse on a rude table, and there it is thoroughly washed and an embalming fluid injected in the arm. With other grim bodies the corpse lies in a larger room until it is identified or becomes offensive. In the latter case it is hurried to the large grave, a grave that will hereafter have a monument over it bearing the inscription "Unknown Dead."

The number of the latter is growing hourly, because pestilence stalks in Johnstown, and the bloated, disfigured ma.s.ses of flesh cannot be held much longer.

Levelled by Death.

Bodies of stalwart workmen lie beside the remains of refined ladies, many of whom are still decked with costly earrings and have jewels glittering on the fingers. Rich and poor throng these quarters and gaze with awe-struck faces at the ma.s.ses of mutilations in the hope of recognizing a missing one, so as to accord the body a decent burial.

From Death's Gaping Jaws.

We give here the awful narrative of George Irwin's experience. Irwin is a resident of Hillside, Westmoreland county, and was discovered in a dying condition in a clump of bushes just above the tracks of the Pennsylvania Railroad, about a mile below Johnstown. When stretched upon two railroad ties near the track his tongue protruded from his mouth and he gasped as if death was at hand. With the a.s.sistance of brandy and other stimulants he was in a degree revived. He then told the following story:

"I was visiting friends in Johnstown on Friday when the flood came up.

We were submerged without a moment's warning. I was taken from the window of the house in which I was then a prisoner by Mr. Hay, the druggist at Johnstown, but lost my footing and was not rescued. I clung to a saw log until I struck the works of the Cambria Iron Company, when I caught on the roof of the building. I remained there for nearly an hour, when I was knocked again from my position by a piece of a raft. I floated on top of this until I got down here and I stuck in an apple tree.

Preferred Death to Such Sights.

"I saw and heard a number of other unfortunate victims when swept by me appealing for some one to save them. One woman and two children were floating along in apparent safety; then they struck the corner of a building and all went down together.

"I would rather have died than have been compelled to witness that sight.

"I have not had a bit to eat since Friday night, but I don't feel hungry. I am afraid my stomach is gone and I am about done for."

He was taken to a hospital by several soldiers and railroad men who rescued him.

A Young Lady's Experiences.

Miss Sue Cadd.i.c.k, of Indiana, who was stopping at the Brunswick Hotel, on Was.h.i.+ngton street, and was rescued late Friday evening, returned home to-day. She said she had a premonition of danger all day and had tried to get Mrs. Murphy to take her children and leave the house, but the lady had laughed at her fears and partially dissipated them.