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

with floating furniture. The citizens,
used to the slow-creeping floods of other years, were entirely mystified
and distracted by this sudden, hurtling, seething flood that seemed to
spring by night from the clouds that hovered low over the city and
plunged their seas of water into the rivers that converge in the very
heart of Dayton.
Railroad and wagon bridges over the Miami River were swept away.
The telephone operator at Phoneton said that from his window in the
station he had seen a bridge one mile north of Dayton collapse and

another bridge crossing the river at Tadmor, eleven miles north of
Dayton, was expected to give way at any moment.
Communication between Phoneton and Dayton, the operator said, was
only intermittent, as the only available wire was being used by the
linemen in their efforts to restore service.
Troy and Tippecanoe City, north of Dayton, were both flooded and
many people took refuge on the roofs of their homes.
Below Dayton vast acreages were seas of yellow. Farms were lakes,
roads were raceways through which raced the swollen streams.
Telegraph service was maimed, and all sorts of communication was
well-nigh impossible.
THOUSANDS MAROONED
Crowded in the upper stories of tall office buildings and residences,
two miles each way from the center of the town, were thousands of
persons whom it was impossible to approach. At Wyoming Street, three
miles beyond what has heretofore been considered the danger line,
water was running eight feet deep.
The Western Union operator at Dodson, Ohio, said the office was filled
with foreigners who had fled from Dayton. Looters were shooting
people down in the streets, according to these refugees. They also
reported that the Fifth Street bridge at Dayton had washed down
against the railroad bridge and arrangements were being made to
dynamite both structures. This bridge was dynamited in the afternoon,
but the effect was not felt to any marked degree.
The foreigners who sought refuge in the Dodson telegraph office were
panic-stricken and told wild stories of the flood, saying nearly every
part of the town was under water and the conditions becoming more
serious.
The breaking of the Tarleton reservoir, which supplies the drinking
water, left the city without water and added great danger of typhoid in

the use of flood water.
Frank Purviance, an employee of the Terre Haute, Indianapolis and
Eastern Traction Company, at Dayton, over the long-distance telephone
said scores had been drowned there.
"They're dying like rats in their homes; bodies are washing around the
streets and there's no relief in sight," Purviance said.
MANY CREEP TO SAFETY BY CABLE
At Wyoming Station, on the South Side, where the National Cash
Register Company centered its efforts at rescue, many saved their lives
by creeping on a telephone cable, a hundred feet above the flood.
At first linemen crept along the cables, carrying tow ropes to which
flat-bottomed boats were attached. When the flood became so fierce
that the boats no longer were able to make way against it, men and
women crept along the cables to safety. Others, less daring, saw
darkness fall and gave up hope of rescue.
Those willing to risk their lives in the attempt to rescue found
themselves helpless in the face of the water.
The first to seek safety by sliding along the telegraph conduits was a
man. Then came four women. The first of the women was Mrs. Luella
Meyer. She was a widow with one son, a boy in knee-breeches.
He got out on the wire and with the agility of a cat was soon across.
But Mrs. Meyers, when over the boiling torrent, swayed as though faint,
slipped and the crowd stood with bated breath.
By a lucky chance her senses came back to her so that she could grasp
one of the wires. Hand over hand she was able to pull herself slowly to
the nearest pole, where she rested before again making the trial. This
time she did not falter, but when she was picked up by the rescuers at
the farthest pole toward safety she was limp from nervous and physical
exhaustion.

Four companies of the Third Regiment, Ohio National Guard, spent the
night aiding the city officials in rescuing families in the flood-stricken
districts. Telephone and railroad service was interrupted in every
direction.
John Hadkins and James Hosay, privates of the Ohio National Guard,
were drowned while in acts of rescue. The body of an elderly woman
floated down near Wyoming Street in the afternoon, but the current was
so swift that it could not be recovered.
The National Cash Register Company's plant, on a high hill, offered the
only haven in the South End. Three women became mothers in the
halls of its office buildings during the night.
In the woodworking department of the National