America's Greatest Flood and Tornado Calamity: Authentic Story of These ...

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Preface

In the presence of a great disaster the human mind: is appalled, the human tongue is silent save in supplication for aid, and the human pen is often paralyzed.

Words utterly fail to express the emotions aroused by man's contemplation of one of Nature's cataclysms. Even at a distance, in space or in time, it is difficult rightly to interpret, in spoken or Written language, the full significance of the event; while immediately after the horror, with a hundred million people anxiously awaiting definite news from the scene of disaster, it is difficult for the press to convey a correct view of ravages wrought hy the mighty agencies of death and damage that are unloosed at times hy an inscrutable^ Providence.

The lapse of a few days, sometimes a few weeks, is required, as a rule, before a comprehensive viewpoint can be secured, so that all the facts of an appalling disaster may be properly marshaled for public information. Early reports of death and damage are often exaggerated and misleading. Hence the value of a volume such as is here presented, which will serve as a permanent and reliable record of the events chronicled.

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PREFACE

The disastrous floods in the Valley of the Ohio pass into history as unprecedented in the United States in their danger to human life and the extent of damage done. Following so closely after the Omaha tornado of March 23, which laid a goodly portion of that city in ruins, the news of devastation in Ohio stunned the entire nation and commanded the sympathy of the civilized world. Reaching "almost Asiatic magnitude," the floods caused disaster on an almost Asiatic scale, particularly shocking to American consciousness because of their occurrence in the heart of a great, wealthy, civilized and highly efficient nation instead 'of in remote parts of the Celestial Empire, where human life is perhaps held cheaper and the sacrifice of life by raging rivers has lost some of its terror by frequent occurrence.

The facts of the twin disasters — the Ohio flood and the Omaha tornado — are presented to the public in this volume, first, as a record of two remarkable natural occurrences, well worthy of permanent chronicling in book form, and, second, because of public demands for a memento in permanent shape of events that have spread sorrow, mourning, and distress over a large portion of our commercially prosperous and happily fertile Middle West.

The heartfelt sympathy of the whole American people has gone out to those bereft of friends or kin in

PREFACE

these cataclysmic disasters. The practical lessons of flood and tornado are yet to be learned and they may be full of value to living citizens of the states affected and to generations yet to come. The lessons of St. Louis and Omaha should teach us that our cities are not yet wind-proof. We are constantly striving ta make them fire-proof, but our efforts so far have been only partially successful, as the tremendous fire damage bill of tiie United States demonstrates annually. And never as yet have our homes, our to^rns and our cities been made proof against flood. The Johnstown horror and the Galveston tidal wave have now been followed by even worse destruction by uncontrolled waters in the Middle West. Surely a lesson of precaution will be learned now and laid to heart wherever the mighty powers of water are dammed up by human means that may fail under the pressure of a moment and endanger the lives of a whole city full.

The best preparation for protection against possible disaster is accurate and specific knowledge of the facts in similar cases. Comparison and analysis of such facts enable the engineer and the builder to plan more efficiently for protection of life and property against tempest, fire and flood. Results known to have followed given causes can be safeguarded against by the removal of the causes. Dangers that have engulfed some communities living under certain physical conditions can

PREFACE

be provided against by others when wisdom and experience work hand in hand.

And so, as the public attention is riveted on one great disaster after another, it is the part of wisdom to seek out the causes by a close study of the facts. The facts of the Ohio deluge and the destructive wind of Omaha are here presented, therefore, in the hope that many communities may profit by the lessons they teach, and safeguard themselves, so far as is humanly possible, toy wise, forethoughtful preparation, against similar disasters to themselves in future.

Especially does this apply to villages, towns and cities that are threatened or likely to be threatened by flood — and it is generally understood that there are many such dangerous centers of population throughout the country. Some measure of provision against possible disaster, some measure of preparation to alleviate possible distress, should surely be undertaken by all communities with surroundings or conditions that threaten life and property. And if the publication of this recital of the facts of recent horrifying events leads to the better protection of any community against the fatal dangers of storm and flood, the efforts of this chronicler will not have been expended in vain.

"ROCK OF AGES."

A MESSAGE OF SPIRITUAL CONSOLATION

All things have their compensations. Loss, suffering, sorrow, are not without benefits. Tragedies lift us out of ourselves, giving us a renewed vision, stirring our thoughts from the personal and the trivial to the unselfish and the universal.

Now that in 1913, as in memorable years past, a portion of the earth has endured a great natural calamity, we may be privileged to forget our individual welfare (while we care for that of others) and may turn from anxiety about our place in the world, to contemplate our place in the universe.

For the elements again have demonstrated their dominion over us — by a state's-wide sweep of waters across the continent o'erturning our fragile works ; and in the light (or more properly the shadow) of that vast event just passed, we are once more face to face with our futility — the realization of man's appalling littleness in the universe.

On every side we see magnitude no end, motion immeasurable — which act and interact in those sublime manifestations of elemental fury called natural phenomena; and by these involved, hemmed in and overhung, we feel at times o'erawed.

For what friend have we in nature? — none I Bather, we seem interlopers merely, existing at sufferance of a truce between enormous enmities. The name of these enmities is legion, for they are many — if we classify and particularize; their sum, in science, is the entire terminology of chemistry and dynamics; but in simple language we may combine their multifarious terms and call them "heat" and "weight." Puny words! yet their shadows stretch into infinity, as do the forces whose prosaic names they are. Unremitting contact with these forces dulls our thought of them, for we attach no splendor of significance to that which we cannot behold, and they are "things that are not seen," in Saint Paul's words; but, to follow out his thought, they are "eternal," and their ceaseless play underlies and animates all our WQrld.

Impelled by heat, his flaming emissary, the sun, shines down and lifts the sea, transfusing it in air. Hence arise clouds, and the winds that waft them. But, ever hampered by an opposition force, these cannot long endure; for weight resists the sun and draws his vapors and their aerial carriers down to all-receiving earth.

The gracious equipoise of these contrary tendencies comprises what scientists dall "the opposition of forces" — a balance, a turn-about, an interchange of giving and receiving, under which we have sunshine and rain, seed time and harvest — the normal "orderly" working of

"ROCK OF AGES"

nature that man may take account of, base his predion tions on, conform his activities to, and thrive under.

But let a "hitch" occur ! a preponderance of one force apparently subdue the other— and there come those terrific cataclysms, those convulsions of the waters and the air, that man has learned to dread.

At some moment before the midnight of the twentythird of March, at some point in the infinite abyss of space, a zone of heat assumed the vertical, took on the columnar shape — a veritable "pillar of cloud," indeed — towering toward the zenith for perhaps a hundred miles.

Afterward — like any tiny teetering house of blocks piled up by childish hands — it became "topheavy" (ah, the opposing force of weight, which had been apparently subdued, was to accomplish its revenge!), and as a mighty tree might be imagined to totter ere it f ell beneath the axe, so this himdred-miles-high disproportioned and unstable shape of air "toppled over," in familiar phrase — it oscillated, convoluted, then collapsed and fell, with a terrific speed drawn down, constrained once more by the irresistible attraction of the earth.

Through the night it rushed (at a breath accumulating an intenser force through condensation of its substance into hail and rain), it burst in weaker air, to hurl itself on undefended land and sea and sweep them with the besom of destruction.

Some puny point, some pitiable doomed place, must

"ROCK OF AGES"

bear the initial impact of the unimpeded hurricane developed now. Was it on Omaha, or in Indiana, or along the unprotected beautiful Miami Valley that the first full fury fell? Wherever may have been the so-called "storm center," that station straightway became stripped of all its reassuring, human and familiar aspects of regard! It now stood stark, revealed in its primeval attitude alone; abandoned to the impulse of the elements, supine as in the age when natural forces worked prodigiously before the time of man.

Since man appeared, these forces have displayed their power no less remorselessly; only in a changed degree they work than when the mountains rose or the glaciers trenched the valleys and the lakes. For nature never shall be tamed, propitiated, or in the least subdued. Still her convulsions and upheavals come, despite our utmost efforts to avert her disregardf ul rigors, our longing (born of fear fulness and failure) to creep close and have our lot and part in her — aliens denied our home ! How often since the primitive human creature cowered before lightning and the storm, made sacrifices unto them and called them gods — how constantly in every age, since then, has man made effort to be reconciled with nature, to lay her milder ministrations to his heart as sent in love! On long delightful afternoons in June the heavens seem to bend in gracious kindness to the thankful earth — made so for man. Spring's great

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"BOCK OF AGES"

annual miracle of resurrection makes us fain to see delight and hope inspire the force that brings forth grass and flowers.

But only in rare moments is such feeling possible; for there is sure to interpose the failure unforeseen — some careless movement on the part of natural might — to jostle the painstaking house of cards we rear— «■ man's puny structures and his fragile hopes. The truth's revealed once more: not kind at all, nature is negligent. Our harvests fail because her rains are not attentive; or a storm's upheaval is allowed to trace a tiny track an instant on her front (some flood-and-wind destruction like the one just passed), and cities are o'erturned, lives by hundreds are sacrificed; man is struck down again by nature's thoughtless unregardful might, set to resume the race-long struggle of adapting himself to his environment, proved a pauper that maintains itself N on crumbs from the universal store, reduced to wonderment and mourning.

And yet — it is only by being thus brought to a realization that he is at war with natural forces and that these are, by his, minutely matched — this experience alone fits man to lose his awe of nature and reduce it to a proper place and focus in his thought. Alien to nature is man? — what a distinction! Unique, alone, sublime! at his feet the earth, o'er his head the heavens

galaxied with stars ! — but hold ! This fulsome utterance

"ROCK OF AGES"

might be made of all the beasts ; these cower from storms and likewise live amid the glories of the natural world. Here is the difference .\ that man, out 6f the struggle with the forces that at times completely conquer him, has summoned courage and evolved a faith, has framed a .conviction — "substance of things hoped for, evidence of things not seen" — through which alone he triumphs over nature. That conviction is, that there exists a Being from whom mankind and all creation have alike progressed. And as, through his limitations, man may never hope to conquer natural forces, so, through these very limitations, he only can conceive of God that He is love; Aught else is unthinkable. Therefore, let nature smile or frown, both shall mean mercy (which were demonstrable, were our conception adequate) — they shall show forth the justice and the lovingkindness of the Lord.

Hence is born a superhuman energy of hope which has confidence that afflictions are but for a moment* Yet hope does not console ; the steadfast heart may triumph in hardship and adversity, but it cannot rise superior to sorrow for dear ones whose lives have been ruthlessly o'erborne. For this there is one resource more: in time of grief to throw oneself on God. He is the refuge and the strength, the "very present help in time of trouble"; and i n Him man may find rest for his soul.

"ROCK OF AGES"

This fact was revealed of old. It is the burden of the Hebrew prophets' song. These ancient writers, laboring to express its truth, haye set it forth in matchless imagery — in language that has been reverently appropriated and adapted to grace the worship of tour time. But, in all times, man — when appalled by the thought of his littleness in the universe and the doubts which this instills, or when o'erwhelmed by grief— has been reminded that God is his refuge and his strength. Through some insistent phrase this inspiration has been kept familiar to every people. Beautifully expressed by the hymnwriter, it is endeared through fond association to our owii: "Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee I" Feed S. Mtllkr.

VICTIMS OF THE STORM'S VIOLENCE.

Tears are sacred. They are evidence rather of power than of weakness, for they have an eloquence that the greatest orator may not develop. Chiefly this is so because they speak of love, through overwhelming grief and deep and abiding conviction of loss. Thus bereaved, is there an argument wanting to evince the fact that man is more than mortal? Grief, strongly excited, is the peculiar property of man, and whether it be the easily moved tears of wife or mother, or the sternly repressed but moving sympathy of man — let the mourner be respected, almost envied even ; he has manifested the strongest proof of unselfishness. When we contemplate grief in the abstract there is a pleasure in such thought — an awful pleasure — f or it gratifies us to know that there are those who will weep for us. Some there be who are loth to live, and many are so because they have not one friend to mourn for them — their life is desolate because of that fact.

Again, tears are the sincere expression of the heart

and soul. Sorrow or joy, and guilt and innocence too,

cause tears. And they make clean the soul. Also they

appeal, more nearly than can the most impassioned

utterance.

Sometimes they mellow and calm a sad, worn heart; often they relieve, when no other agency can, the contemplation of some fearful catastrophe wherein human beings were as straws inr the wind, went down like wheat before the scythe of the reaper, the reaper Death:

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There is a reaper whose name is Death,

And with his sickle keen He reaps the bearded wheat at a breath,

And the flowers that grow between.

Death, the prof oundest of all facts, after the conviction that there is a God — Death is the minister that calls forth tears andHhey have stolen forth o'er battlefields and over pestilence camps ; as well as by the private bier in humble home and in neglected quarters. Also in the waste sands of the desert, or on the far off isles of the sea, when storm-cast mariners have dug the shallow trench and laid to rest the comrade who has borne the hardship and privation of the shipwreck and the storm, the agony for water and the craze for food. Comrades who have proven one another through such trials weep with sincerest pity when they lose one of their number. Nor need they be ashamed of showing grief. Let manhood quench not the flow that is the sincere testimony to his sentiment and affection, that is a sincere evidence that his grief is genuine.

When through the dreary, storm-bound and deserted streets the melancholy cortege winds, when from the homes where but just now the besom of destruction swept and porch and roof tree crashed, and the life of the loved one was in an instant stricken out, when from these homes is heard steal forth the sobs of mourning 1 and the melancholy signs of woe, in all this sad and trying spectacle after the flood, be sure that tears are doing their healing work, relieving the souls of those who shed them. Through the Miami Valley and in the Indiana towns where the fury of the tempest of the last great cataclysm thundered, there was mourning for the hosts of dead that so pitiably went down. Like a stealthy thief in the night the mighty flood had stolen upon them, unnoted of any, scarcely projected by the scientific watchers of the weather who are looked upon to give timely warning when the elements brood and gather for a storm. Some sleeping in their beds, some gathered in happy entertainments, the wind and rain and lightning fell upon them all and took its toll of lives by hundreds. "Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted," says the sacred writer. It may be considered certain that, throughout the length and breadth of the storm-stricken area, there are households without number rendered desolate by reason of the frightful visitation which the Lord saw fit to send upon his people.

But sorrows are like the tempests. When afar off they look black, they are frightful while they last, for a moment of agony, being convulsive reminders of the fact that all flesh is grass and that as a flower of the field man f adeth ; but anon the heavens are cleared and smile once more, the dayspring comes, beautiful and peaceful nature resumes her normal sway, and we are enabled to feel that somehow, somewhere there must be an explanation, an alleviation for this great grief that has been sent upon us. It must be remembered, too, that sorrow is like night. Day makes the soul happy, but night brings out the stars and reveals to man the vastness of the universe.

An altered world, an altered sky is presented to the one who has known grief. The whole conception of God's plan and purpose may be enlarged for such an one. For this is the compensation of sorrow: that it draws us out of ourselves, makes us see with an extended, clearer vision and makes us to know things deeper than we had dreamed before our hearts were wakened and attuned to grief. For sorrow is the teacher of the intelligence. From it, as bees draw honey from a dry, unsavory herb, man may extract that which shall enrich his understanding and inspire his soul.

Great events where sorrow also comes are stamped on the consciousness indelibly. And there is a tenderness evolved that makes it seem that cold, impassive nature were somehow allied with man. Almost in a fit of human rage she seemingly has wrested trees from their roots, the buildings from their foundations and wrought maliciously in the destruction of property* Hence here is the time for man to realize his superiority to nature, his ability to conquer all that she may visit on him, even grief. Man and nature are equal contenders, one to conquer the earth and subdue it, in the Bible's phrase, the other to exalt or depress taian seemingly at its pleasure. Over all is the one just God, to whom man, confessing his utter dependence and need, may turn for refuge. And so, redeemed, exalted, purified, man may return from his communion with the Lord and take upon himself a greater responsibility of care for the dependent, the suffering and the outcast.

David was such a man. He felt at first the anger of the Lord and knew his own unworthiness. His well beloved son was ingrate to him and his heart was pierced with woe. But out of his affliction came the Psalms, which have comforted untold thousands of despairing hearts since David's time. Sorrow was the exalter and the redemptor of the writer of the Psalms! So, in a less degree, may each and every one who felt the fury of the elements and had their loved ones taken from them — so may they rise to the occasion of the deeper life which loss and suffering gives entrance to. Privileged to behold and be near unto a vast undertaking of nature, and to be stricken with the sorrow which that undertaking wrought, the sufferers from the recent storm may be assured that there has nothing happened that has not been ordained by an all-merciful and Higher Power; they may creep close to that Power in spirit and say, "Not my will but Thine be done !" •

For the simplest and most certain use of sorrow is to take our thoughts and our sentiments back to the Loving Father. We are not conscious of our need of Him in prosperous days; we rejoice in sunshine and in the former and the latter rains, and pile up wealth, careful of that. But sooner or later the dread summons comes for some loved person who was all the worlcl to us. Then in sorrow are our eyes opened and we know of deeper things than was our privilege before. Then are we conscious of a world beyond our own, a land that we must strive to attain. Then is revealed the possibilities of our own unguessed nature yearning unto God, his creature waken to the knowledge of his love. Sorrow is the interpreter of the all-loving Lord, his minister and his exhorter leading man to love and worship him.

This is revealed in little in every home wherein a death occurs. After the great storm which in this volume is described, it is set forth on a profound and moving scale. Sorrow has revealed this fact to the dwellers in Omaha and its vicinity, in the Miami Valley and its adjacent region; their utter dependence upon

God. In time of destruction such as they have undergone, what other refuge have they to attain? Help —there is none in a catastrophe like this. In the twinkling of an eye it comes, destroys, is gone I No refuge possible but the unseen One who holds them in the hollow of his hand. Fbed S. Miller.

Prayer for flood UlcHttis

**fk mmfftf tiod and fienventy fatter, who has tantbt «s vr In Cby holy wora (bat Own «o$t not wQHngty afflict or grieve tbe children of men, give tar to tbe prayers wbicb we humbly offer to Cbee m behalf of oar brethren who are snlferteg from tbe great water floods. Cause fiKtn itt tbeir sorrow to experience tbe comfort of Cby practice and in toeir bewilder* vent tbc guidance of Cby wisdom.

"Stir op, we beseech Cbee, tbe wins of Cby people to mittfster with generous aid to their present needs, and so overate in Cby providence tbts great and sore calamity tDat we may be brought nearer to Cbee and be knit more closely one to anotber in sympathy and love. Jill which we humbly ask through 3esn* gbrist onr Cord* Amen."

[The above prayer was used in many churches on the Sunday following the flood at the suggestion of Bishop David H. Greer of New York.]

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CHAPTER I DISASTER ON DISASTER God moves in a mysterious way

His wonders to perform.

He plants his footsteps in the sea

And rides upon the storm.

Hardly had the public recovered from the first shock of horror at the results of the tornado which laid waste an important section of the city of Omaha on Easter Sunday in the year of grace 1913, when Pelion was piled upon Ossa, horror upon horror, disaster on disaster, by the frightful floods in the valley of the Ohio.

The sympathy of the nation was pouring out in full measure to the stricken city of Nebraska. Only forty-eight hours had elapsed since the "devil cloud" had made its horrifying appearance in the outskirts of Omaha and had passed on, leaving death and desolation in its wake. The President of the United States had just been informed of the full extent of the damage. His condolences and offers of government aid for the sufferers were still fresh from the wire. Committees of relief were being organized, the Red Cross Society had barely begun its helpful work — in fact the fury of the tornado was scarcely spent — when the news of a fresh disaster, reported from the beautiful Ohio city of Dayton, turned all eyes in that direction, with its undeniable demands

for the practical sympathy that should find expression

in immediate measures of relief.

What had happened in Ohio of such terrible import as temporarily to divert attention from the scene of death and distress in Nebraska?

What was this fresh horror that thus dwarfed the devastation wrought by the wind's fury? What mighty elemental force had been unloosed for purposes of destruction?

The quaking of the earth, the fury of flames, the giant sweep of the wind — all these have found their victims in American homes, have laid waste American cities and taken heavy toll of human life, but neither earthquake nor fire, nor storm of rushing wind had been the agent of destruction here. Water, let loose from bondage, had done the work.

Of course the telegraph and the telephone soon told their tale of woe. Crippled as the means of communication were in the city where Death had stalked abroad for never-to-be-forgotten hours, working its ruthless will and reaping its greatest harvest, sparing neither age, sex nor condition, — f rom this center of widespread destruction there came falteringly on a single wire the fatal news of an overwhelming flood that had left mourning and misery in its wake.

A beautiful show-city, renowned for enterprise, for commercial prosperity, for the splendor and attractiveness of its environs, and above all, for its civic pride — Dayton lay prostrate beneath the crushing weight of wicked waters, suffering the fate of the house built upon the sand.

"The floods descended and the rains came, and beat upon that house; and it fell;

"And great was the fall thereof."

Then soon it appeared that the city of Dayton was not alone in its suffering. Unloosed from the bonds that Nature and man had contrived to hold them in check, the maddened waters had demanded more vietims and speedily had found them in sad abundance.

A mighty deluge, an avalanche of waters, had suddenly stricken a wonderfully prosperous section of the Middle West, transforming the fertile fields and many thriving cities of Ohio and Indiana into a vast scene of death and desolation.

Fed by the copious rains of a stormy Spring and by

the melting snows of the highlands, rivers had burst

their banks, dams had ceased to do their duty, reservoirs

had scattered their contents broadcast over the land,

death-dealing waters were sweeping everything before

them.

Human lives by the hundreds had been drowned out; houses had been torn from their foundations and swept away in the resistless flood, drowning their inmates like rats in a trap ; property to the extent of untold millions had been destroyed; scores of thousands were homeless, and danger of death, famine and pestilence threatened on every hand. «

Picture the horror of the rising water, as it mounted rapidly foot by foot to heights that threatened to overwhelm all but the largest and most substantial residences. Friends, relatives and neighbors, their houses forced adrift by the rushing element, disappeared from sight. Across the open spaces, through the parks, or down the street, there came the wreckage and the ruins of what had been, but an hour before, happy and prosperous homes. Not one house here and there, but whole blocks of houses, whole neighborhoods, were engulfed by the raging waters and washed away with them. Oh, the horrors of the long night that followed I Here a village under water; there a city full of people struggling to keep alive through the hours of darkness, without light, without heat, without water. "Water, water all around, but not a drop to drink." No food — no boats with which to get away or by means of which relief might approach. Only the bare hope of rescue and the barer chance that the waters might speedily recede from the face of the earth. No friendly gleam of lights in neighbor houses, telling of human proximity *ud power to aid.