The Johnstown Horror!!!

The mahogany bar of a saloon, with its nickel-plated rail, lies under another heap in the city park, and thousands of cigars from a manufactory are piled high in Vine street, and are used as the only dry part of the roadway. Those of the people who can locate their homes have gathered what furniture and ornaments they can find together, and sit beside them looking like evicted tenants.

The Grand Army of the Republic, represented by Department Commander Thomas J. Stewart, have placed a couple of tents at the head of Main street for the distribution of food and clothing. A census of the people will be taken and the city divided into districts, each worthy applicant will be furnished with a ticket giving his or her number and the number of the district.

The Post-office Uniforms

Across the street from the Grand Army tents is the temporary post-office, which is now in fairly good working order. One of the distributing clerks hunted up a newspaper correspondent to tell him that the post-office uniforms sent from Philadelphia by the employees of that city's office have arrived safely and that the men want to return thanks through this paper.

The Red Cross Army people from Philadelphia have decided to remain, notwithstanding General Hastings' cool reception, and they have taken up their quarters in Kernville, where they say the destitution is as great as in what was the city proper.

The Tale the Clocks Tell

The clocks of the city in both public and private houses tell different tales of the torrent that stopped them. Some of them ceased to tick the moment the water reached them. In Dibert's banking-house the marble time-piece on the mantel stopped at seven minutes after 4 o'clock. In the house of the Hon. John M. Rose, on the bank of Stony Creek, was a clock in every room of the mansion from the cellar to the attic. Mr. Rose is a fine machinist, and the mechanism of clocks has a fascination for him that is simply irresistible. He has bronze, marble, cuckoo, corner or "grandfather" clocks—all in his house. One of them was stopped exactly at 4 o'clock; still another at 4.10; another at 4.15, and one was not stopped till 9 P.M. The "grandfather" clock did not stop at all, and is still going.

The town clocks, that is the clocks in church towers, are all going and were not injured by the water. The mantel piece clocks in nearly every house show a "no tick" at times ranging from 3.40 to 4.15.

Dead in the Jail

This morning a man, in wandering through the skirts of the city, came upon the city jail, and finding the outer door open, went into the gloomy structure. Hanging against the wall he found a bunch of keys and fitting them in the doors opened them one after another. In one cell he found a man lying on the floor in the mud in a condition of partial decomposition. He looked more closely at the dead body and recognized it as that of John McKee, son of Squire McKee, of this city, who had been committed for a short term on Decoration Day for drunkenness. The condition of the cell showed that the man had been overpowered and smothered by the water, but not till he had made every effort that the limits of his cell would allow to save himself. There were no other prisoners in the jail.

Heroes of the Night

Thomas Magee, the cashier of the Cambria Iron Company's general stores, tells a thrilling story of the manner in which he and his fellow clerks escaped from the waters themselves, saved the money drawers and rescued the lives of nineteen other people during the progress of the flood. He says:

It was 4.15 o'clock when the flood struck our building with a crash. It seemed to pour in from every door and window on all sides, as well as from the floors above us. I was standing by the safe, which was open at the time, and snatched the tin box which contained over $12,000 in cash, and with other clerks at my heels flew up the stairs to the second floor. In about three minutes we were up to our waists in water, and started to climb to the third floor of the building. Here we remained with the money until Saturday morning, when we were taken out in boats. Besides myself there were in the building Michael Maley, Frank Balsinger, Chris Mintzmeyer, Joseph Berlin and Frank Burger, all of whom escaped. All Friday night and Saturday morning we divided our time between guarding the money, providing for our own safety and rescuing the poor people floating by. We threw out ropes and gathered logs and timbers together until we had enough to make a raft, which we bound together with ropes and used in rescuing people. During the night we rescued Henry Weaver, his wife and two children; Captain Carswell, wife and three children, and three servant girls; Patrick Ravel, wife and one child; A.M. Dobbins and two others whose names I have forgotten. Besides this we cut large pieces of canvas and oilcloth and wrapped it around bread and meat and other eatables and threw it or floated it out to those who went by on housetops, rafts, etc., whom we could not rescue without getting our raft in the drift and capsizing. We must have fed 100 people in this way alone.

When we were rescued ourselves we took the money over to Prospect Hill, and sent to the justice of the peace, who swore us all in to keep guard over our own money and that taken by Paymaster Barry from the Cambria Iron Company's general offices, amounting to $4000, under precisely the same circumstances that marked our escape. We remained on guard until Monday night, when the soldiers came over and escorted us back to the office of the Cambria Iron Company, where we placed the money in the company's vault.

So far as known at this hour only eighteen bodies have been this morning recovered in the Conemaugh Valley. One of these was a poor remnant of humanity that was suddenly discovered by a teamster in the centre of the road over which his wagons had been passing for the past forty-eight hours. The heavy vehicles had sunk deeply in the sand and broken nearly every bone in the putrefying body. It was quite impossible to identify the corpse, and it was taken to the morgue and orders issued for its burial after a few hours' exposure to the gaze of those who still eagerly search for missing friends.

Only the hardiest can bear to enter the Morgue this morning, so overwhelming is the dreadful stench. The undertakers even, after hurriedly performing their task of washing a dead body and preparing it for burial, retreat to the yard to await the arrival of the next ghastly find. A strict order is now in force that all bodies should be interred only when it becomes impossible to longer preserve them from absolute putrefaction. There is no iron-clad rule. In some instances it is necessary to inter some putrid body within a few hours, while others can safely be preserved for several days. Every possible opportunity is afforded for identification.

Four bodies were taken from the ruins at the Cambria Club House and the company's store this morning. The first body was that of a girl about seventeen years of age. She was found in the pantry and it is supposed that she was one of the servants in the house. She was terribly bruised and her face was crushed into a jelly. A boy about seven years of age was taken from the same place. Two men and a woman were taken from in front of a store on Main street. The remains were all bruised and in a terrible condition. They had to be embalmed and buried immediately, and it was impossible to have any one identify them.

Only Fifty Saved at Woodville

The number of people missing from Woodville is almost incredible, and from present indications it looks as if only about fifty people in the borough were saved. Mrs. H.L. Peterson, who has been a resident at Woodville for a number of years, is one of the survivors. While looking for Miss Paulsen, of Pittsburg, of the drowned, she came to a coffin which was marked "Mrs. H.L. Peterson, Woodville Borough, Pa., age about forty, size five feet one inch, complexion dark, weight about two hundred pounds." This was quite an accurate description of Mrs. Peterson. She tore the card from the coffin and one of the officers was about to arrest her. Her explanations were satisfactory and she was released.

In speaking of the calamity afterward she said: "The people of Woodville had plenty of time to get out of the town if they were so minded. We received word shortly before two o'clock that the flood was coming, and a Pennsylvania Railroad conductor went through the town notifying the people. I stayed until half-past three o'clock, when the water commenced to rise very rapidly, and I thought it was best to get out of town. I told a number of women that they had better go to the hills, but they refused, and the cause of this refusal was that their husbands would not go with them and they refused to leave alone."

Terrific Experience of a Pullman Conductor

Mr. John Barr, the conductor of the Pullman car on the day express train that left Pittsburgh at eight o'clock, May 31, gave an account of his experience in the Conemaugh Valley flood: "I was the last one saved on the train," he said. "When the train arrived at Johnstown last Friday, the water was up to the second story of the houses and people were going about in boats. We went on to Conemaugh and had to halt there, as the water had submerged the tracks and a part of the bridge had been washed away. Two sections of the day express were run up to the most elevated point.

"About four o'clock I was standing at the buffet when the whistle began blowing a continuous blast—the relief signal. I went out and saw what appeared to be a huge moving mountain rushing rapidly toward us. It seemed to be surmounted by a tall cloud of foam.

Sounding the Alarm

"I ran into the car and shouted to the passengers, 'For God's sake follow me! Stop for nothing!'

"They all dashed out except two. Miss Paulsen and Miss Bryan left the car, but returned for their overshoes. They put them on, and as they again stepped from the car they were caught by the mighty wave and swept away. Had they remained in the car they would have been saved, as two passengers who stayed there escaped.

"One was Miss Virginia Maloney, a courageous, self-possessed young woman. She tied securely about her neck a plush bag, so that her identity could be established if she perished. Imprisoned in the car with her was a maid employed by Mrs. McCullough. They attempted to leave the car, but the water drove them back. They remained there until John Waugh, the porter, and I waded through the water and rescued them.

"The only passengers I lost were the two unfortunate young ladies I have named. I looked at the corpses of the luckless victims brought in during the two days I remained in Johnstown, but the bodies of the two passengers were not among them.

"At Conemaugh the people were extremely kind and hospitable. They threw open their doors and provided us with a share of what little food they had and gave us shelter.

Stripped of Her Clothing

"While at Conemaugh, Miss Wayne, of Altoona, who had a miraculous escape, was brought in. She was nude, every article of her clothing having been torn from her by the furious flood. There was no female apparel at hand, and she had to don trousers, coat, vest and hat.

"We had a severe task in reaching Ebensburg, eighteen miles from Conemaugh. We started on Sunday and were nine hours in reaching our destination. At Ebensburg we boarded the train which conveyed us to Altoona, where we were cared for at the expense of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company.

"I had a rough siege. I was in the water twelve hours. The force of the flood can be imagined by the fact that seven or eight locomotives were carried away and floated on the top of the angry stream as if they were tiny chips."

CHAPTER XVI

Stories of the Flood

War, death, cataclysm like this, America,Take deep to thy proud, prosperous heart.E'en as I chant, lo! out of death, and out of ooze and slime,The blossoms rapidly blooming, sympathy, help, love,From west and east, from south and north and over sea,Its hot spurr'd hearts and hands humanity to human aid moves on;And from within a thought and lesson yet.Thou ever-darting globe! thou Earth and Air!Thou waters that encompass us!Thou that in all the life and death of us, in action or in sleep.Thou laws invisible that permeate them and all!Thou that in all and over all, and through and under all, incessant!Thou! thou! the vital, universal, giant force resistless, sleepless, calm,Holding Humanity as in the open hand, as some ephemeral toy,How ill to e'er forget thee!Walt Whitman.

"Are the horrors of the flood to give way to the terrors of the plague?" is the question that is now agitating the valley of the Conemaugh. To-day opened warm and almost sultry, and the stench that assails one's senses as he wanders through Johnstown is almost overpowering. Sickness, in spite of the precautions and herculean labors of the sanitary authorities, is on the increase and the fears of an epidemic grow with every hour.

"It is our impression," said Dr. T.L. White, assistant to the State Board of Health, this morning, "that there is going to be great sickness here within the next week. Five cases of malignant diphtheria were located this morning on Bedford street, and as they were in different houses they mean five starting points for disease. All this talk about the dangers of epidemic is not exaggerated, as many suppose, but is founded upon all experience. There will be plenty of typhoid fever and kindred diseases here within a week or ten days in my opinion. The only thing that has saved us thus far has been the cool weather. That has now given place to summer weather, and no one knows what the next few days may bring forth."

Fresh Meat and Vegetables Wanted

Even among the workmen there is already discernible a tendency to diarrhœa and dysentery. The men are living principally upon salt meat, and there is a lack of vegetables. I have been here since Sunday and have tasted fresh meat but once since that time. I am only one of the many. Of course the worst has passed for the physicians, as our arrangements are now perfected and each corps will be relieved from time to time. Twenty more physicians arrived from Pittsburgh this morning and many of us will be relieved to-day. But the opinion is general among the medical men that there will be more need for doctors in a week hence than there is now.

Sanitary Work

Dr. R.L. Sibbel, of the State Board of Health, is in charge of Sanitary Headquarters. "We are using every precaution known to science," said he this morning, "to prevent the possibility of epidemic. Our labors here have not been confined to any particular channel, but have been extended in various directions. Disinfectants, of course, are first in importance, and they have been used with no sparing hand. The prompt cremation of dead animals as fast as discovered is another thing we have insisted upon. The immediate erection of water-closets throughout the ruins for the workmen was another work of the greatest sanitary importance that has been attended to. They, too, are being disinfected at frequent intervals. We have a committee, too, that superintends the burial of the victims at the cemeteries. It is of the utmost importance in this wholesale interment that the corpses should be interred a safe distance beneath the surface in order that their poisonous emanations may not find exit through the crevices of the earth.

"Another committee is making a house-to-house inspection throughout the stricken city to ascertain the number of inhabitants in each standing house, the number of the sick, and to order the latter to the hospital whenever necessary. One great danger is the overcrowding of houses and hovels, and that is being prevented as much as possible by the free use of tents upon the mountain side. So far there is but little contagious disease, and we hope by diligent and systematic efforts to prevent any dangerous outbreak."

Dodging Responsibility

It is now rumored that the South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club is a thing of the past. No one admits his membership and it is doubtful if outside the cottage owners one could find more than half a dozen members in the city. Even some of the cottage owners will repudiate their ownership until it is known whether or not legal action will be taken against them. If it were not for the publicity which might follow one could secure a transfer of a large number of shares of the club's stock to himself, accompanied by a good sized roll of money. It is certain that the cottage owners cannot repudiate their ownership. None of them, however, will occupy the houses this summer.

The Club Found Guilty

Coroner Hammer, of Westmoreland county, who has been sitting on the dead found down the river at Nineveh, concluded his inquests to-day. His trip to South Fork Dam on Wednesday has convinced him that the burden of this great disaster rests on the shoulders of the South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club of Pittsburgh. The verdict was written to-night, but not all the jury were ready to sign it. It finds the South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club responsible for the loss of life because of gross, if not criminal negligence, and of carelessness in making repairs from time to time. This would let the Pennsylvania Railroad Company out from all blame for allowing the dam to fall so badly out of repair when they got control of the Pennsylvania Canal and abandoned it. The verdict is what might have been expected after Wednesday's testimony.

Mr. A.M. Wellington, with P. Burt, associate editor of the Engineering News, of New York, has just completed an examination of the dam which caused the great disaster here. Mr. Wellington states that the dam was in every respect of very inferior construction, and of a kind wholly unwarranted by good engineering practices of thirty years ago. Both the original and reconstructed dams were of earth only, with no heart wall, but only riprapped on the slopes.

The original dam, however, was made in dammed and watered layers, which still show distinctly in the wrecked dam. The new end greatly added to its stability, but it was to all appearances simply dumped in like an ordinary railroad fill, or if rammed, the wreck shows no evidence of the good effect of such work. Much of the old part is standing intact, while the adjacent parts of the new work are wholly carried off. There was no central wall of puddle or masonry either in the new or old dam. It has been the invariable practice of engineers for thirty or forty years to use one or the other in building high dams of earth. It is doubtful if there is a single dam or reservoir in any other part of the United States of over fifty feet in height which lacks this central wall.

Ignorance or Carelessness

The reconstructed dam also bears the mark of great ignorance or carelessness in having been made nearly two feet lower in the middle than at the ends. It should rather have crowned in the middle, which would have concentrated the overflow, if it should occur, at the ends instead of in the centre. Had the break begun at the ends the cut of the water would have been so gradual that little or no harm might have resulted. Had the dam been cut at the ends when the water began running over the centre the sudden breaking would have been at least greatly diminished, possibly prolonged, so that little harm would have resulted. The crest of the old dam had not been raised in the reconstruction of 1881. The old overflow channel through the rock still remains, but owing to the sag of the crest in the middle of the dam only five and a half feet of water in it, instead of seven feet, was necessary to run the water over the crest.

And the rock spillway, narrow at best, had been further contracted by a close grating to prevent the escape of fish, capped by a good-sized timber, and in some slight degree also as a trestle footbridge. The original discharge pipe indicates that it was made about half earth and half rock, but if so there was little evidence of it in the broken dam. The riprapping was merely a skin on each face with more or less loose spauls mixed with the earth. The dam was seventy-two feet above water, two to one inside slope, one and a half to one outside slope and twenty feet wide on top. The rock throughout was about one foot below the surface. The earth was pretty good material for such a dam, if it was to be built at all, being of a clayey nature, making good puddle. To this the fact of it standing intact since 1881 must be ascribed, as no engineer of standing would have ever tried to so construct it. The fact that the dam was a reconstructed one after twenty years' abandonment made it especially hard on the older part of the dam to withstand the pressure of the water.

Elder Thought it was Safe

Cyrus Elder, general counsel for the Cambria Iron Company and a wealthy and prominent citizen of Johnstown, lost a wife and daughter in the recent disaster and narrowly escaped with his own life.

"When the rebuilding of the dam was begun some years ago," he said, "the president of the Cambria Iron Company was very seriously concerned about it, and wished, if possible, to prevent its construction, referring the matter to the solicitor of the company. A gentleman of high scientific reputation, who was then one of the general engineers, inspected the dam. He condemned several matters in the way of construction and reported that this had been changed and that the dam was perfectly safe. My son, George R. Elder, was at that time a student in the Troy Polytechnic University.

"His professor submitted a problem to the class which he immediately recognized as being the question of the safety of the South Fork dam. He sent it to me at the time in a letter, which, of course, is lost, with everything else I possessed, in which he stated that the verdict of the class was that the dam was safe. The president of the Cambria Iron Company being still anxious, thought it might be good policy to have some one inside of the fishing and hunting corporation owning the dam. The funds of the company were therefore used to purchase two shares of its stock, which were placed in the name of D.J. Morrell. After his death these shares were transferred to and are still held by me, although they are the property of the Cambria Iron Company. They have not been sold because there was no market for them."

Untold Volumes of Water

So far as the Signal Service is concerned, the amount of rainfall in the region drained by the Conemaugh river cannot be ascertained. The Signal Service authorities here, to whom the official there reported, received only partial reports last Friday. There had been a succession of rains nearly all of last week. The last rain commenced Thursday evening and was unusually severe.

Mrs. H.M. Ogle, who had been the Signal Service representative in Johnstown for several years and also manager of the Western Union office there, telegraphed at eight o'clock Friday morning that the river marked 14 feet, rising; a rise of 13 feet in twenty-four hours. At eleven o'clock she wired: "River 20 feet and rising, higher than ever before; water in first floor. Have moved to second. River gauges carried away. Rainfall, 2 3-10 inches." At twenty-seven minutes to one P.M., Mrs. Ogle wired: "At this hour north wind; very cloudy; water still rising."

Nothing more was heard from her by the bureau, but at the Western Union office here later in the afternoon she commenced to tell an operator that the dam had broken, that a flood was coming, and before she had finished the conversation a singular click of the instrument announced the breaking of the current. A moment afterward the current of her life was broken forever.

Sergeant Stewart, in charge of the bureau, says that the fall of water on the Conemaugh shed at Johnstown up to the time of the flood was probably 2 5-10 inches. He believes it was much heavier in the mountains. The country drained by the little Conemaugh and Stony Creek covers an area of about one hundred square miles. The bureau, figuring on this basis and 2 5-10 inches of rainfall, finds that 464,640,000 cubic feet of water was precipitated toward Johnstown in its last hours. This is independent of the great volume of water in the lake, which was not less than 250,000,000 cubic feet.

Water Enough to Cover the Valley

It is therefore easily seen that there was ample water to cover the Conemaugh Valley to the depth of from ten to twenty-five feet. Such a volume of water was never known to fall in that country in the same time.

Colonel T.P. Roberts, a leading engineer, estimates that the lake drained twenty-five square miles, and gives some interesting data on the probable amount of water it contained. He says:—"The dam, as I understand, was from hill to hill about one thousand feet long and about eighty-five feet high at the highest point. The pond covered above seven hundred acres, at least for the present I will assume that to be the case. We are told also that there was a waste weir at one end seventy-five feet wide and ten feet below the comb or top of the dam. Now we are told that with this weir open and discharging freely to the utmost of its capacity, nevertheless the pond or lake rose ten inches per hour until finally it overflowed the top, and, as I understand, the dam broke by being eaten away at the top.