The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado Part 32

THE HERO OF LOWER PEACHTREE

Tributes to the bravery of Professor Griffin, a survivor of the tornado, were paid by many who visited the scene. Professor Griffin, after having been blown hundreds of feet from his home, returned bruised and bleeding to the center of the town and worked unceasingly to relieve the injured and to quiet survivors, insane with grief and excitement. Peter Milledge, whose wife and two children perished when their home was destroyed, went mad.

EXTENT OF DAMAGE

The Red Cross agent who investigated the situation at Lower Peachtree on Wednesday, March 26th, reported that sixty-eight were injured in the tornado which swept that section and that two hundred were dest.i.tute.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE FLOOD IN NEW YORK

HUNDREDS OF HOMES IN BUFFALO FLOODED--THE PLIGHT OF ROCHESTER--VALLEY OF THE GENESEE PARALYZED--DRIVEN FROM HOMES AT OLEAN--WORST FLOOD IN HISTORY OF HORNELL--LAKE COUNTRY PARALYZED WITH FEAR--WATER COVERS PART OF BINGHAMTON--GLENS FALLS BRIDGE DOWN--DISTRESS IN FORT EDWARD--BIG PAPER COMPANY IN TROUBLE--HOMES ABANDONED IN SCHENECTADY--HIGH WATERS IN TROY--WATERVLIET FLOODED--ALBANY IN THE GRIP OF THE FLOOD.

A tremendous downfall of rain, March 24th and 25th, developed some of the worst floods known in fifty years. Vast areas of New York were under water and hundreds of homes were swept away.

On the night of March 25th the entire area of South Buffalo was under water, street car traffic was suspended and rowboats were plying the streets.

The Buffalo River and Cazenovia Creek had both overflowed their banks with a rush at ten o'clock in the morning, and the dwellers in the South Park section of the city had no chance to escape.

Hundreds of homes were soon flooded. Firemen were sent out in boats to rescue those who desired to leave. Hundreds of workers were marooned in distant parts of the city, unable to reach their homes.

Within the city limits of Buffalo big manufacturing plants suffered $150,000 of damage. Many big oil tanks were overturned and crashed against buildings. Train service throughout the city was practically at a standstill, and miles of track east and south of the city were washed away. The main line of the Erie Railroad, between Buffalo and New York City, was washed out in many places.

THE PLIGHT OF ROCHESTER

Not since 1865, when Rochester, then a city of 50,000, suffered immense damage by floods, has the city faced such a serious situation as it did on the night of Friday, March 28th. Half the business section was under water, which in some sections was five feet deep.

Water commenced to pour into Front, Mill and Andrew Streets early Thursday evening, and all through the night merchants worked to get their goods to higher ground. The big warehouse of the Graves Furniture Company in Mill Street was flooded so quickly that thousands of dollars damage was done to the goods. The following morning it was impossible to get through these streets except in boats and rafts, and the work of salvage was continued in this way.

The newspaper offices of the _Post Express and Democrat_ and the _Chronicle_ had their bas.e.m.e.nts flooded and the presses put out of commission. The Pennsylvania line into Rochester, which uses the bed of the old Genesee Ca.n.a.l, was put out of commission. The Erie and Lehigh Valley lines to villages to the south were blocked by the floods for several days.

The only fatality of the flood occurred at six o'clock Sunday evening, when a boy who was paddling over the flooded meadow of the Genesee Valley Park was carried out into the river. The canoe was swept over the dam at Court Street.

VALLEY OF THE GENESEE PARALYZED

The whole valley of the Genesee was more or less paralyzed. As early as Wednesday the villages of Mount Morris and Dansville, in the Genesee River Valley, were under several feet of water, and the terrified folk who lived in the lowlands were hurrying to places of safety, abandoning their homes.

Commerce was soon at a standstill, and conditions continued to grow more serious. They were in some localities worse than at any time since 1865.

The was.h.i.+ng out of bridges and the flooding of roads practically cut the villages off from the outside world.

DRIVEN FROM HOMES AT OLEAN

One thousand persons were driven from their homes at Olean by the high waters of the Canisteo and Hornell. John Cook was drowned while attempting to rescue others.

Four oil tanks were floating about the city of Olean, and the coating of oil on the water made the danger from fire serious. The water was from three to ten feet deep.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.

Showing what was once the town of Lower Peachtree. The six X's denote the places where houses stood before the tornado, in the heart of the main residential streets]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright by International News Service.

One of the victims of the tornado at Omaha was picked up by the tornado and his corpse left suspended in the broken and twisted limbs of a tree]

WORST FLOOD IN HISTORY OF HORNELL

Following thirty hours of continued rain, Hornell, a small city in Steuben County, suffered the worst flood in its history. It swept down the Canisteo Valley, completely inundating the greater portion of the city of Hornell and half a dozen villages within a radius of ten miles.

A thousand homes were flooded.

The Canisteo Valley for a distance of forty miles was under water, and the situation was appalling. Roads were washed out, bridges gone and much property destroyed. The fire in every furnace in the flood district was out, and suffering was acute.

LAKE COUNTRY PARALYZED WITH FEAR

The lake region in the central western part of the state suffered heavily from floods. The villages of Marcellus, Camillus and Marietta, west of Syracuse, were threatened with extinction. The earthen bank, which adjoins the huge dam of Otisco Lake, weakened and, it was feared that if the flood conditions did not improve the bank would give way.

Auburn was seriously threatened by the rising of Owasco Lake. The dam furnis.h.i.+ng power to the Dunn and McCarthy shoe shops broke in the center and it was feared the rest of the structure would go down. Pumps were at work continuously in the Auburn water works at Owasco Lake to keep the engine and boiler pits free of water.

The Lehigh Valley Railroad along Cayuga Lake, between Auburn and Ithaca, was under water for a distance of nine miles south of Kings Ferry. No trains were running on that branch. A small bridge at Farley's Point, near the lower end of Cayuga Lake, was washed away. An avalanche of mud and stones buried the railroad tracks near Kings Ferry.

The incessant rains of two days raised the little creeks in the vicinity of Interlaken to torrents. Many bridges were washed out.

Canandaigua Lake reached its highest level in sixteen years. Streets in Canandaigua were flooded.

Floods due to breaks and overflows in the Erie Ca.n.a.l at Waterloo, Seneca Falls, Port Bryon and elsewhere, caused thousands of dollars loss. The Seneca River was over its banks.

WATER COVERS PART OF BINGHAMTON

At Binghamton, on the Susquehanna River, water covered the entire northwestern residence section of the city. All the manufacturing establishments along the river banks were closed.

Boats were forced into use in the residence districts and the Fire Department, with three steamers, endeavored to keep down the water in the bas.e.m.e.nts in the business section.

GLENS FALLS BRIDGE DOWN

But more serious than the conditions anywhere else in New York were those along the Hudson River Valley. Damage estimated at not less than $300,000 was caused by high water near Glens Falls, resulting from heavy rains, which fell for nearly a week.

The steel suspension bridge, two hundred feet in length, across the Hudson between the city and South Glens Falls was destroyed. All records for high water were broken, the bridge being carried out after the steel supports underneath had been constantly pounded for hours by logs dashed against them by the raging waters.

At Hadley, one of the plants of the Union Bag and Paper Company was completely flooded, and water was pouring from every window. It was feared that the structure might be destroyed. All paper mills in the section were closed down.