The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado Part 15

The authorities were fearful of looting in the flood district and the militia, under strict orders, in several cases arrested rescue workers and interfered with their work, suspecting them of looting. A large quant.i.ty of supplies was transported to the flood district by automobile and rail, and the refugees were made comfortable as fast as they could be released from the grip of the waters.

RECOVERING THE DEAD

Thursday's bodies were recovered from jams of driftwood that had piled up along the shallow sh.o.r.es of the flood. All of them were badly mutilated and in several cases identification was difficult. The authorities organized a squad of men to cover the entire inundated area in the search of bodies. Up to date fifty-one known dead had been reported.

Hundreds of those whose homes were in the flooded district, but who were marooned in the business section of the city, away from their families, were able to get to the flood section Thursday by a circuitous route about twenty-five miles long. All manner of vehicles and pedestrians crowded the road throughout the day, and at the end of the way pathetic reunions of families separated since Tuesday took place in the muddy, flood-swept streets.

Daniel A. Poling, general secretary of the Ohio Christian Endeavor Society, issued an appeal to the 160,000 Christian Endeavorers in the state, urging them to forward contributions to state headquarters.

West Columbus remained virtually under martial law. Militia companies on duty were ordered to shoot looters on sight. Thousands of curious people and those with friends and relatives in the flooded districts were kept out of the west side by police and troopers. The city relief station, at the city hall, and the newspapers maintained and compiled lists of the rescued, as well as lists of the dead.

By Friday order was being rapidly evolved out of chaos, and missing loved ones were being accounted for by hundreds. Ample shelter and food were being provided for the thousands of homeless.

Flood waters drained off from the devastated districts, railroad service was slowly resumed and telegraph and telephone wires were being restrung.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP SHOWING ONE OF THE CIRCUITOUS ROUTES BY WHICH NEWS OF THE FLOOD WAS CARRIED TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD]

GOVERNOR c.o.x INDEFATIGABLE

For three days Governor c.o.x tirelessly accomplished the work of a dozen men, laboring from daylight to long past midnight to aid the unfortunates of Ohio. His hand guided everything done in the work of rescue and on Friday he turned his attention to new problems of preventing epidemics, safeguarding life and property, relieving the sufferings of surviving flood victims and the care of the dead.

The hero of the Dayton disaster, John A. Bell, the telephone official who, marooned in a business block had been keeping Governor c.o.x informed every half hour of conditions in the stricken city and delivering orders through boatmen who rowed to his window, called the State House at daybreak and greeted the Executive with a cheery "Good morning, Governor. The sun is s.h.i.+ning in Dayton."

But suns.h.i.+ne gave way to a blizzard like a snowstorm later in the day and the reports coming from Bell were less cheering as the day advanced.

On Friday the Governor seized the railways to insure pa.s.sage of relief trains and to keep sightseers and looters away from the afflicted munic.i.p.alities.

The entire military force of Ohio was on duty in the flooded districts, which included practically the entire state. Because of the interrupted communications headquarters had not been able to keep fully in touch with the movements of all the troops. The officers in command in most cases had to determine routes and procure their own transportation.

Under the most difficult conditions they uniformly showed both energy and ingenuity in reaching their destination.

Estimates of the flood death list in Columbus continued to range from fifty to five hundred, although these figures represented largely opinions of officials on duty in the flood zone. The efforts of the authorities were directed almost entirely to relieving the suffering of those marooned in houses in the territory under water, and until all of these had been rescued the search for the dead did not begin in earnest.

The waters receded slowly on Friday and the swirling currents abated a trifle, allowing the rescue boats a wider area of activity.

ORGANIZING RELIEF

George F. Unmacht, civil service clerk, connected with the quartermaster's department of the United States army, stationed at Chicago, arrived in Columbus Friday to a.s.sist in directing the distribution of supplies. Rations for 300,000 arrived together with tents for 20,000 persons; 100 hospital tents, 400 stoves, 29,000 blankets, 8,900 cots, 100 ranges.

Officers at Columbus were ordered to report at Fort Wayne, Cincinnati, Youngstown and Hamilton, while a hospital corps was sent to the Columbus barracks.

The Governor's attention on Friday was devoted largely to organization of the work of relief. He received telegrams notifying him of collections of more than $250,000. A New York newspaper had sent $150,000 subscribed to a fund it raised. Word was received that the Chicago Chamber of Commerce had raised $200,000, half of which had been forwarded to Ohio. Judge Alton B. Parker subscribed $5,000 and James J.

Hill $5,000. A thousand dollars was sent from Walkerville, Ontario.

Governor Dunne wired that a bill appropriating $100,000 for Ohio flood sufferers had been introduced in the Illinois Legislature, while Governor Osborne telegraphed that the Michigan a.s.sembly had appropriated $20,000.

Colonel Myron T. Herrick, of Cleveland, Amba.s.sador to France, cabled his deep anxiety over the Ohio disaster, and Governor c.o.x in reply asked him to call a meeting of the Ohio Society in Paris and wire funds, saying the losses exceeded the San Francisco earthquake.

The Ohio Society of Georgia wired the Governor it was sorry and it too was invited to show how much it was sorry.

HUNGRY REFUGEES SEIZE FOOD

The need for relief was indicated when a company of telephone linemen working outside of Columbus had their supplies taken from them by hungry flood refugees.

Governor c.o.x recalled some of his former comments on the need of expenditures for the National Guard. "The National Guard," he said, "has saved itself. Its efficiency has been a revelation to me." In the organization so promptly effected by the Governor the moment the floods came, his most efficient aid came from Adjutant-General Speaks and the National Guard officers, and with the Guard the work of rescue and of maintaining order was made possible. The officers and men performed every duty faithfully.

Martial law prevailed in most of the stricken cities and the soldiers prevented the looting of the abandoned houses and cared for the refugees.

Colonel Wilson, of the Paymaster's Department, was made financial officer as well as treasurer of the relief funds. Under his direction and the Governor's supervision the Ohio relief commission prepared for a War Department audit, as is required by the Red Cross Society. The Governor demanded that there should be but one relief committee in the state, and to that end the local committees formed were subordinate to the state commission.

INCIDENTS OF HEROISM

The work of rescue brought out many striking incidents of personal heroism.

From two o'clock Tuesday afternoon until nearly nightfall Wednesday Charles W. Underwood, a carpenter of this city, held two babes in his arms while he clung to the branch of a tree near the Greenlawn Cemetery, where he had been carried fully a mile by the current. One babe was his own, the other belonged to a neighbor, and as he clung to them he saw his own twelve-year-old daughter on another limb of the same tree weaken from exposure and die, her frail body swaying limply as it hung over the branch. He also saw a woman refugee in the same tree weaken and fall into the swirling waters. Underwood and the babes were finally rescued.

Two hundred and thirty-three souls marooned in the building of the Sun Manufacturing Company succeeded in sending out a note by messenger, praising the work of John Brady, who, with a skiff, after his home was swept away, rescued two hundred men, women and children and brought them to the Sun plant.

"Track out at Columbus because of floods," was the message that Albert E. Dutoit, a Hocking Valley Railway engineer, read when his train was stopped Wednesday at Walbridge, near Toledo. His heart gave a bound, for he knew his family must be threatened. He detached his engine from the train and started on his race with death. Like mad he shot his engine across the country between there and Columbus. All night Wednesday he tried to get through the military lines and succeeded on Thursday. He induced men in motor boats to rescue his family. In a few more moments, he had his eight-months-old baby in one arm with the other around the waist of his wife. The reunion brought tears of sympathy to the eyes of the rescuers.

Mrs. Emil Wallace, living southwest of the city, in the lowlands, ran toward a hill when she saw the onrus.h.i.+ng waters. She reached safety just as the water was up to her neck. Her home was submerged.

A street car was washed a quarter of a mile away from the track. The conductor and half a dozen pa.s.sengers were drowned like rats in a trap before they could get out of the car.

Two unknown men lost their lives while trying to save a twelve-year-old girl from a raft floating near Greenlawn Avenue. On horseback the men fought desperately against the swift current of the flood until at last they were carried away.

Nearly one hundred babies were born in the flood district and in the refuge camps between Tuesday morning and Sat.u.r.day. In the majority of cases neither the mothers nor the babies received any medical attention.

Many of the babies died from exposure.

As the sun broke through a fringe of clouds Sat.u.r.day morning it looked down upon scenes of utter devastation in the stricken west side of this city, where a mighty torrent of water had rendered what was a prosperous and happy community of 40,000 souls into a place of death, want and disaster.

SCENES OF PATHOS

The scenes were full of human pathos. Torn bodies, disfigured almost beyond recognition, were being dug from debris. Whole families, marooned for four long days and nights in the upper stories of houses that had escaped as if by miracle, many of them without food or water and in fear of constant death by flood or flame, were being reached by rescuers.

Many of those rescued were in a critical condition from the long hours they had spent in the bitter cold--their clothing soaked by the incessant rainfall of three days and nights and no fuel or bedding with which to combat their fearful condition. The water was subsiding materially and the work of rescue was thus made easier.

The work of the searching parties in the flooded district increased the list of bodies recovered from the water to sixty-one. All of these were lodged in the temporary morgue, and most of them were identified.

Accurate estimates of the dead were still impossible. Safety Director Bargar said not more than one hundred had been drowned. Coroner Benkert a.s.serted that the loss of life would reach 200, while former Mayor Marshall, commanding the rescue workers in the southern end of the flooded district held that both estimates were too high.

Of the sixty-one bodies recovered twenty-seven had been identified.

Estimates placed property loss at from $15,000,000 to $30,000,000. But no one seemed to care about the monetary loss. The city was staggered by the weight of human suffering.