Chapter 12

THE FLOOD IN WESTERN OHIO

DISTRESS IN BELLEFONTAINE--PIQUA DELUGED--TROY A HEAVY SUFFERER--MIAMI ON THE RAMPAGE AT MIDDLETOWN--HAMILTON HARD HIT--BIG RESERVOIRS THREATENING--OLENTANGY RIVER A LAKE AT DELAWARE--FLOOD AT SPRINGFIELD--NEW RICHMOND UNDER WATER.

The rushing torrent of water that swept down the Miami River, surging over Dayton, devastated a score or more of towns in its mad course from the creeks around Bellefontaine to the point southwest of Cincinnati where the waters of the Miami merge with those of the Ohio.

DISTRESS IN BELLEFONTAINE

Cries of distress arose from Bellefontaine on Wednesday, March 26th. At that time millions of gallons of water were pounding against the banks of the Lewiston reservoir, fifteen miles from Bellefontaine, and it was feared that if the increasing flood should burst the banks the lives of every inhabitant of the Lower Miami Valley would be imperiled.

The immense reservoir at Lewiston did burst its banks between Lake View and Russell's Point and swept through the great Miami Valley like a tidal wave. It was this vast quantity of water, added to the already overflowing river, that inundated the cities of Sidney and Piqua.

At Sidney there was no loss of life, but the town was badly flooded and early reports of loss of life ran high.

PIQUA DELUGED

The flooded Miami swept over Piqua in a great deluge. The water reached the first floor of the Plaza Hotel, which is situated in the high part of the city. Panic-stricken the people fled from their homes or sought refuge in the upper stories of high buildings. Fire broke out in many places. At one point in the city the water was twelve feet deep. Many persons were drowned. Many lost all their possessions.

Relief measures were taken by city authorities. The property loss was great, as most of the manufacturing plants were destroyed by the flood. A company of militia from Covington maintained order and cared for those made destitute by the flood.

TROY A HEAVY SUFFERER

The town of Troy was also a heavy sufferer. The state troops who arrived in the town on March 27th with provisions for Dayton were stranded.

One-third of the town was cut off from gas, electricity and water supply. A train load of provisions arrived. The provisions were carefully distributed.

One-half of the state troops left on foot for Dayton, following the tracks of the railroad.

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FLOOD EDITION THE PIQUA DAILY CALL Vol. 29 PIQUA, OHIO, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 1913. No. 134

Calamity Strikes Piqua; Our City Bowed in Grief Appalling Loss of Human Life, and Great Destruction of Property. Thousands Are Homeless

City Under Martial Law--Communications Cut Off with Outside World--Relief Station Established at the Y. M. C. A.

Piqua is today a stricken city; a city bowed down, broken with grief. We have been visited by the greatest calamity in our history. The loss of life that has been suffered from the flood cannot be estimated now.

It is sufficient now to tell that relief measures are being taken. The Business Men's Association, the Y. M. C. A. and citizens generally are co-operating with the city and military authorities to bring order out of chaos to rescue those confined in houses still standing in the flooded sections to house and feed the homeless.

The city is practically under martial law. Company C. and Company A. of Covington are here and patrolling the city under the the direction of the city authorities.

Last night, we regret to say, there was a beginning of looting and plundering in the south part of the city.

Rigorous measures will be taken by the military and the police to repress and prevent such in the future.

Piqua still is cut off from communication from the outside world. All the telegraph and telephone wires are down. Bridges and tracks are down on both railroads and no trains are running.

The only outside communication possible has been by using a Pennsylvania freight engine to Bradford from which point it has been possible to use the telegraph.

All the traction lines still are crippled and unable to run their cars in or out of the city. How soon it may be possible to re-open these lines of communication it is impossible to say.

While greatly crippled the local telephone service has been maintained by both exchanges. The operators have done heroic work day and night ever since the first danger began to threaten.

No mail has been received or sent out of Piqua since Monday. Local deliveries, of course, are impossible.

North and south the C. H. & D. R. R. is crippled. From Sidney to Dayton the washout is practically complete.

The Pennsylvania R. R. bridge was washed out at the east end, and there is no communication across the river. It is understood that much track has been washed out. A line is open to Bradford and westward.

The Y. M. C. A., the Spring street, Favorite Hill Schools, the Presbyterian, Christian, Church of Christ, Grace M. E., St. Marys school hall, and countless homes have been opened freely to the flood sufferers. The Y. M. C. A. has been the center of the relief administration and from which all directions have been issued and to which the sufferers have come.

Provisions can and are being brought from Fletcher and other places east to the sufferers who have reached the hills on the east of the river.

This morning Mayor Kiser placed the fire department at work freeing the most necessary places from water. The electric light plant was first pumped out. Last night the city was in darkness except for gas, oil lamps, and candles. The hospital was found needing little attention.

The damage to property is beyond calculation. Over 200 houses at least have been washed away and destroyed. Shawnee is practically wiped out.

The above is a facsimile reproduction of the first page of _The Piqua Daily Call_, issued the day after the city was inundated by the flood. Ordinarily the Call is an eight-page newspaper, 17 × 20 inches in size. This issue consisted of four pages 7½ × 10 inches.

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MIAMISBURG CUT OFF

Miamisburg, a town of eight thousand, was cut off for days. When news finally reached neighboring towns the death list was estimated at twenty-five. Later estimates placed it at less. Only one body has been recovered, but the property damage ran high.

MIAMI ON THE RAMPAGE AT MIDDLETOWN

As the result of the worst cloudburst known in twenty years the great bridge over the Miami River, at Middletown, was carried out on March 25th. Fifteen persons were afterward missing and scores of houses could be seen floating down the stream. The water and electric light plants were out of commission.

Two hundred houses were under water, their former occupants finding shelter in the school houses, churches and city buildings. The great Miami River was a mile wide at this point.

The city was practically cut off from the outside world. Tracks of both the Big Four and Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railroads were under water and no trains were running. The tracks of the Ohio Electric Railway were washed out in many places. A portion of the state dam in the Miami River, north of Middletown, was washed away.

Water from the river started the Maimi and Erie Canal on a rampage and submerged half of Lakeside, a suburb. The families of Harold Gillespie and Mrs. Mary Fisher were forced to flee from their homes in their night clothes.

The casualty list could not be estimated with accuracy. It was believed that from fifty to one hundred had been claimed by the waters.

About three o'clock the following morning the river began to fall slowly, but the situation was still dangerous. Supplies were rapidly running out, and a food famine was looked for. Misery was averted by the arrival of food late Thursday night, but building of fires was not permitted. The authorities feared an outbreak of flames similar to the Dayton conflagration. Ten thousand of the eighteen thousand population were homeless.

HAMILTON HARD HIT

Of all the cities in the Miami Valley with the exception of Dayton, Hamilton was hardest hit. Many persons killed, a thousand houses wrecked by the rushing torrent and 15,000 homeless was the toll of the flood in this city and environs, and the harrowing scenes attending flood disasters in the past decade faded into insignificance when compared with the havoc wrought by the latest deluge.

Before darkness blotted out the scene on March 25th, house after house, with the occupants clinging to the roofs and screaming for help, floated on the breast of the flood, but the cries for help had to go unanswered because of the lack of boats. What little rescue work there was accomplished was done before night came on, as the rescuers were powerless after darkness.

The city was then without light of any kind, the electric light and gas plants being ten feet under water. Soldiers rushed to this city from Columbus were in charge of the situation, the town being under martial law.

The victims of the raging waters were caught like rats in a trap, so fast did the flood pour in on them, and few had even a fighting chance for their lives. Ghastly in the extreme was the situation. The cries of the women and children as they faced inevitable death, and the frantic but unsuccessful efforts of husbands and fathers to rescue loved ones, presented a scene that will go down in the history of world's catastrophes as one of the worst on record.

Fire added to the horror of the situation when shortly after midnight the plant of the Champion Coated Paper Company, which is six blocks long by one block wide, broke into flames. In less than a quarter of an hour the entire factory was a mass of fire and there was no chance of checking its progress in the least as the water service needed by the fire department was put out of commission early in the day.

The Beckett Company's paper mill, valued at $500,000 for buildings and equipment, collapsed into the flood the following morning.

SUFFERING AMONG THE REFUGEES

On Wednesday, March 26th, the river began to fall at the rate of nine inches an hour. After the season of awful horror the change brought hope. The work of rescue and relief, however, was exceedingly difficult.

There were only a few boats that could be used in the work of rescue and relief. Ohio National Guardsmen who arrived from Cincinnati Tuesday night did heroic work. They came in four motor trucks and brought food and clothing with them. One of the trucks returned to Cincinnati for more boats.

A relief train arrived from Indianapolis Wednesday morning and other cars and automobile trucks, loaded with supplies, managed to reach the outskirts of the city.

The Lakeview Hotel, which had previously housed fifty refugees, collapsed early Wednesday, but all the occupants left in time to escape death.

Williamsdale, Cooke, Otto and Overpeck, the north suburbs of Hamilton, were in ruins. On the west side of the river many residences were saved, but there was despair among the survivors, who were unable to get word from husbands and fathers who were caught on the east side and unable to cross after bridges were destroyed. Efforts to get lines across the river were futile.

Provisions for the homeless continued arriving in abundance, but the gas, electric light and water plants were in ruins and this added to the terrors of the living.

More than two hundred and fifty persons spent two days and nights in the little court house without light, food, water or heat, and often they were drenched with rain that leaked through holes in the roof.

REMOVING THE DEAD

As the flood waters receded on March 27th, the authorities immediately began the work of removing the dead. The first hour of the search saw ten bodies uncovered from the ruins, and the most conservative estimates placed the death roll at fifty.

Piled high upon the east side of the court house on Friday were coffins awaiting the flood victims, whose bodies were being gathered as rapidly as possible.

On April 3d, the city offered a reward of ten dollars for each body recovered from the debris left by the flood. Up to that time seventy-one bodies had been recovered. It was believed, however, that many bodies had been swept out of the Miami into the Ohio River and perhaps would never be found.

DAMAGE OF $4,000,000

Secretary Garrison, of the War Department, who toured the flood district of Hamilton on March 30th, as the personal representative of President Wilson, was told that the property loss was estimated at $4,000,000.

With Secretary Garrison were Major-General Wood, chief of staff of the army, and Major McCoy. They permeated the very heart of the city through zones of devastation which in many respects rivaled in horror those through which they passed in Dayton. They saw block after block in both the residential and business sections of the city, where street lines virtually were eliminated by upheaved and overturned houses jammed against each other and against the buildings which withstood the shock, in great and almost unbroken heaps of debris.

South Lebanon was cut off from Lebanon by a raging current that swept all the surrounding farm lands, entailing a property loss of thousands of dollars. All rivers and creeks south of Dayton to Lebanon were swollen by a heavy rainfall.

The flooding of the Miami at Cleves, seven miles below Cincinnati, caused the railroad embankment to break and that part of the town was under fifteen feet of water. The operator at Cleves said he distinctly heard cries for help, but he could not learn if there was any loss of life or the extent of the property damage.

The following day the waters had receded, but part of the city was still under water; no loss of life was reported. Hartwell and the vicinity felt the force of the rising Mill Creek caused by the breaking of the canal at Lockland. The large factories at Ivorydale were forced to close down, and many thousands of employees were thrown out of work.

BIG RESERVOIRS THREATENING

The Grand Reservoir at Celina, Ohio, in the extreme western part of the state, seriously threatened Celina and the adjacent towns. For two days the very worst was feared, but on March 28th, the river was slightly lower and no water was flowing over the banks.

OLENTANGY RIVER A LAKE AT DELAWARE

The Olentangy River, ordinarily only a creek, became a lake that covered most of Delaware. In many places people were left clinging to trees, roof-tops and telegraph poles crying for assistance. The work of rescue was practically impossible because of the swift current of the flood, and most of those who were seen trying to save themselves were swept away to death.

The village of Stratford, five miles to the south, was entirely under water and the loss great. Property damage in Delaware itself was estimated at $2,000,000.

FLOOD AT SPRINGFIELD

Springfield suffered the worst flood in its history. Both Buck Creek and Mad River broke from their banks and flooded the lowlands. Several hundred houses in the eastern section of the city were surrounded by water. They contained families who refused to abandon their homes. Many factories were compelled to close.

There was no loss of life, but intense suffering due to insufficient food supply and the destruction of many homes.

NEW RICHMOND UNDER WATER

The flooding of the Ohio in the southwestern part of the state caused disaster in many other towns besides Cincinnati. On April 1st the entire town of New Richmond was under water. The people took up quarters on the hills surrounding the town. Provisions were received from Batavia and there was no suffering. No one was reported dead or missing.

At Moscow, near New Richmond, fifty houses were washed from their foundations.