The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado Part 7

"Oh, just amusing myself, shooting at rats that come upstairs. When are you going to take me out of here?" he replied.

Three babies were born in one church during the afternoon. One was born in a boat while its mother was being conveyed to safety. Such scenes were common.

WOMEN BECAME HYSTERICAL

At the rescue stations the scenes enacted were heartrending and the most pitiful were witnessed at the temporary morgues. At the West Dayton morgue frantic crowds all day and night watched every body brought in, hoping against hope it was not that of some loved one.

Women became hysterical at times when searching for missing members of their families whom they had failed to find at the relief stations.

With the coming of nightfall Thursday the efforts to rescue more persons were slackened, and all of Dayton not in the central flood districts waited in dread for the nightly fires which had added horrors to the already terrible situation.

The flood situation at night appeared brighter than in the morning. The water had fallen from three to five feet, the currents of the river and creek had slackened, and there was food enough left for the town's breakfast and dinner.

As Galveston and San Francisco pulled themselves together after calamity so Dayton began pulling itself together on Friday of the week of the flood. Emerging from the waters and privation, citizens began co-operating with those who rushed to the rescue from outside.

Considerable progress was made toward the restoration of order and in giving relief to those in the worst distress.

Much cheer was taken from the fact that so far as loss of life was concerned it was not so great as had been feared, though no exact estimates were yet calculable.

Financially the citizens had a great burden to bear. Investigators on Friday put the figures of the losses at double that of the previous day, making it $50,000,000.

THE FLOOD RECEDES

The down-town district was practically free of water. Fire engines pumped out the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Algonquin Hotel, that the Algonquin's artesian well supply might be pumped into the empty city water mains for fire protection.

Water was still from ten to fifteen feet deep in certain districts of the west side. A mile of residences on Linwood Avenue had been swept clear and nothing remained to indicate that the street had existed.

A SURVEY OF THE FLOOD'S DAMAGE

In a tour of the business sections it was found that the high stage of the flood had been nine feet at Third and Main Streets, the heart of the city.

The tower of Steele High School was levelled and the Leonard Building on Main Street was undermined so that it collapsed. Other buildings stood up.

The following buildings were found to have withstood the flood, furnis.h.i.+ng shelter to about 7,000 people who were marooned in them since Tuesday: Conover Building, Kuhns Building, The Arcade, two Cappel Buildings, Callahan Bank Building, Schwind Building, Commercial Building, Mendenhall Building, Rike k.u.mler Building, Reibold Building, Elder & Johnson's building and United Brethren Publis.h.i.+ng Company's building.

NO PUBLIC BUILDINGS GONE

None of the public buildings was destroyed. Among these buildings were the Dayton Club, Victoria, National and Colonial theatres, city hall, court house, Beckel, Phillips, Algonquin and Atlas hotels, Masonic temple, post office, Y. M. C. A. and various churches.

The Log Cabin, 115 years old, the first house built in Dayton, still stood, although it is on the south bank of the Miami, right in the path of the flood.

The electric light and gas plants were safe from the high water. The city's water comes from a reservoir high above the river.

In Dayton less than one hundred bodies had been recovered by Friday night, though thousands were missing. The fire was out, however, and the flood had so receded that relief boats were able to get to practically all parts of the city.

MOST HOUSES WRECKED

Every house in the flooded district was practically ruined. Streets were so clogged with wreckage that it was almost impossible to get through them.

"Strange to say, there was not much suffering in our particular neighborhood," declared George Armstrong, who had been marooned in the Capell furniture store building. "There was one woman with a three-weeks-old baby. We took excellent care of her. And did we pray?

There never were such prayers in church. We had a case of whiskey and offered to send it off to persons who seemed exhausted. They refused to take it, although ordinarily they are not teetotallers."

BOATMEN TOUR DISTRICTS

Members of the United States life-saving crew of Louisville navigated sections of flooded Dayton heretofore unexplored, reporting conditions in North Dayton and Riverdale quite as deplorable as the first estimates concerning suffering were concerned.

Cruising the southern end of Riverdale, where it was feared there would be found a big death list, Captain Gillooly, in charge of the crew from the United States life saving station at Louisville, Ky., reported conditions paralleling those in other sections of the stricken city, but only two bodies were reported as having been recovered. The flooded territory in Riverdale, which is a section of substantial home owners, was approximately seventeen blocks long and seven blocks wide.

After having descended the Miami River, Captain Gillooly reported that in the south central section of Dayton, where the flood flowed wildest on Tuesday night and Wednesday, thousands of persons still were imprisoned in upper floors of their homes. He stated that from numerous inquiries among people whose residences had been inundated it appeared the life loss would not be nearly so large as it was placed by first reports.

This section still was flooded, although the water rapidly was receding, and while a few corpses eddied out from the flood's edge, yet in the center of the area it was stated that only two bodies had been seen.

DRINKING WATER DISTRIBUTED

Captain Gillooly and his men distributed food and quant.i.ties of drinking water to a large number of the flood's prisoners. Arrangements also were made to provide the needy ones with the necessary supplies from time to time until the flood waters receded.

At many different points along the route stops were made and the crew detoured away from the rivers. It was found that many of these detours could be made afoot, the water having rapidly fallen since the night. At no place was the water behind the levees deeper than four feet.

The Louisville men took relief to several hundred families in the low district in the vicinity of Ludlow and Franklin Streets. Here the water had reached the roofs of all two-story buildings. Only a few of the most desperate cases were brought out, the first move being to leave bread and water in as many places as possible.

Sixty Catholic sisters at the Academy of the Sisters of Notre Dame and eighteen persons for whom they had provided refuge were found to have been without food or water since Tuesday. There were several cases of illness, and the suffering had been intense. The life savers left bread and water and planned to take further help.

Meanwhile Capt. H. A. Hansen and the crew from Cleveland were operating several boats in North Dayton. There many of the poorer cla.s.s live, and few of the buildings were substantial. Dozens of them were swept away, upturned and shattered.

Mayor Phillips was still marooned in his house, and G. B. Smith, president of the Chamber of Commerce, continued in active aid of relief operations.

The Fourth National Bank Building, which was reported several times to have been destroyed by fire, was found untouched by the flames, although a building immediately adjoining was burned. The newspaper offices, the _News_ and _Herald_ and _Journal_ buildings, were safe, but none was issuing papers.

The Cleveland battalion of engineers were the first of a horde of troops which began to pour into Dayton in the morning. They were immediately put at work distilling the water. The fifteen men of the Dayton Ohio National Guard companies, who had been on duty since midnight Tuesday, frankly had been unable to cope with the situation. The police force was also depleted by the fact that many of its members had been marooned by high water. The looter had been in high glee.

MARTIAL LAW ENFORCED

Strict martial law was put into force. With headquarters at Bamberger Park, Col. Zimmerman of the Fifth Ohio Regiment organized the forces of protection, and by noon every accessible section was under strict guard.

Frequent fights and skirmishes were held with the pillagers, who sought to steal under the cover of darkness. Orders to shoot to kill looters on the third shot were issued to the militiamen. The pillaging of abandoned homes and stores and the slugging and robbing of men and women in the streets after nightfall had reached a desperate stage when the troops arrived, and drastic orders were necessary.

"Shoot at the legs first, and then shoot to kill," was the way the soldiers were instructed to act.

Colonel Zimmerman listened to thousands who sought pa.s.ses to go through the flood area to reach marooned friends and kinsmen. Only a few were allowed to go, and these were compelled to prove special causes. To those who a.s.serted they had starving friends, Colonel Zimmerman rejoined that provisions and medicines constantly were going into the inundated district.

"Be satisfied you're not dead yet," was the Colonel's disposition of many of the applicants.