Show THE rhe GREAT FLOOD it is ie now known that the cambria iron works are not damaged as badly as was feared half a million dollars will cover the loss A young lad named eddie firsher Fir shir whose mother and five brothers and sisters had lost their lives committed suicide june 7 while in a fit of L despondency by hurling himself I 1 from the top of a building THE DAM WAS DEFECTIVE A M wellington and P F P burt associate editors of the engineering ing news of new york yerk have completed an examination oi of the dam which caused the great disaster wellington states that the dam was in every respect of very inferior construction and of the kind wholly unwarranted by the good engineering practices of thirty years ago both the original and reconstructed ted dams were of earth only with no heart wall and but only rip rapped on the slopes the original dam however was made iu in rammed and watered layers which still show distinctly in the wrecked places the new end merely added to its stability but it was to all appearance peara pe arance quee simply dumped in like or kinary railroad fill or if rammed shows no evidence or good effect from it much of the old is standing intact while adjacent parts of the new works are wholly carried off there was no central wall of puddle or masonry either in the old or new dam it had bad been an invariable practice of engineers thirty or forty years ears ago to use one or the other in aiding building high darns dams of earth the reconstructed dam also bears the marks of great carelessness in having been made two feet lower in the middle than at the ends it should rather have been downed 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 at once cut at the ends when the water began running over the centre the sudden breaking of the dam would at least have been greatly diminished diminish possibly prolonged so that little harm might have resulted the crest creat of the old dam had not been raised in the reconstruction st of 1881 the old overflow channel through the rock still remains at the end but owing to the sag of the crest in the middle of the jam dam having only aj 5 feet of water in it instead of 7 feet it was necessary to run the waterway over the crest and the rock spillway spill way narrow at best had been further contracted by close grating to prevent the escape of fish capped by good sized lumber and in some slight degree also by the trestle at the foet of the bridge the orl original inal discharge pipes at the foot of of the dam had been permanently closed when reconstructed and this while a minor matter compared to others mentioned further reduced the possible rate of maximum discharge the net effect of all these differences of the condition was that the dam as it stood was not more safe against successive floods from its inferior construction st than the original darn dam would have been with a crest only three and a half to four feet high above the bottom of the rock spillway instead of seven feet A large amount of the old and sloped wall still remains intact and I 1 is of excellent quality it does not appear that there was any great amount of leakage through the dam before it broke the destruction came from water flowing over the top wellington said that no engineer of known and good stand standing ang for such work could possibly have been engaged on it since in thu particulars mentioned it violated the most elementary and universally understood requirements of good practice estimates of the original dam indicate dai ate that it was to be made about half of earth and half of rock but if so there was little evidence of it in the broken dam the I 1 was merely a skin on oa each face with more or less loose mixed with the earth the dam was twelve feet above the water twenty one feet inside the slope and twenty feet wide on top jf the he 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 of it at all being of a clay nature to this fact its 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 over twenty years of abandonment made it espe especially liard hard on the older part of the dam to withstand the pressure of the water eight thousand men were at work june 7 clearing out the debris but truth compels the statement that the undertaking had not yet been fairly started fires were burning up and down the valley as far as the eye could reach and tho the air was w as thick with smoke and yet people familiar with the situation and aware of the efforts of this army of earnest workmen e estimated that it would take men for weeks to clear out the heaps of ruin piled up for miles between the hills and up and down the course of the river A correspondent writing at johnstown june 7 says k an hour ago the writer comp completed feted a the mighty arec krecl in this vicinity dozens of human beings and animals were to be seen on the surface charred and blackened by fire and in such decomposition that the strongest men could not more than glance at them eighty six men inen from altoona uner under orders of the sanitary officials are scattering disinfectants disinfect ants over acres of the wreckage that the railroad bridge stopped mr kirk declares thousands of bodies williet will yet be found in this thia territory alone the great trouble thus far e experienced at the bridge lias has been caused by the niam mass ofa of telegraph wire that reaches across I 1 the various spans through which the water had passed line repairmen repair men are badly needed to help in removing the wires and kirk says as soon as ahee are gone he will through by the acre i i h the problem of the hour is the disposal dispo salof of the debris about the pennsylvania railroad bridge unless it is soon got rid of the stench will be so overpowering that no human being can withstand it the pneumonia scourge grows alarmingly notwithstanding the statements of dr groff of the state health board dr sweet a member of dr groffe staff came down from cambria tonight with a startling report to fo an associated press correspondent dr sweet said prospect hill is full of pneumonia with some diphtheria and measles the hospital is full to overflowing and there axe are forty two cases outside they were almost all severe pneumonia there is every condition needed for the spread of the disease and I 1 fear an epidemic dr carrington also reported several cases of pneumonia he having found them on the hill near move ville A pair of human feet was noticed sticking out of the sand on the river bank near kernville Kern ville today A gang of men soon unearthed the bodies of two men and one girl PM all in a good state of preservation the community is in the w wildest aldest excitement as a result of the recent flood the blame for the entire affair has been placed on the south fork fishing club and so angry are some people in this city that peril Is feared for W S boyer superintendent at the cottages on th the elake lake one of the pretty villas has been broken into and the furniture broken one of the boats owned bythe by the club was stolen in daylight and reduced to kindling wood by an infuriated crowd A liquor crazed fellow who broke into the cottages was not discovered it if was evident that robbery was not his bis intent infest affairs at present are assuming an aspect that is dangerous the coroners jury that has been in session all day at nineveh terminated its labors today their verdict is fully prepared and only lacks the signatures odthe of the jury before it is given publicity it is understood that after rev reviewing dewing at length the careless breaks of the past years it declares the executive committee of the south fork fishing club guilty of gross if not criminal crimins neglect 11 A trap was laid for the undertaker who was robbing bodies in the fourth ward morgue A female was brought and alad before it was W dressed for burial a diamond ring was placed on one of her fingers ft agers and the undertaker to take care of the body he was detected in the act of stealing jewelry and promptly arrested by the immediately took him to pittsburg A dispatch dated johnstown june jane 9 says the health of we the vau valley Is unusually good notwithstanding notwithstanding re ports of the threatened epidemic wab the following showing bulletin has been igou issued ou by y the e state board 0 of health ands and speaks ke for itself it was posted po today in every place health bulletin health of johnstown and vie vicinity anity is excellent no epidemic disease of any kind hind prevails nor is it expected that any will arise the whole region has been divided into districts and each place is under a competent sanitarian the state board of health is prepared pr pared to meet all emergencies genc es as they e arise se the air r is wholesome 01 e and the water generally pure I 1 if the good g people ale of the devastated va stated district Is ct w will I 1 go 0 on as they have so BO nobly done for the past week in their efforts to clean up the wreckage the good health will certainly be maintained signed GEORGE J GROFF miss walk and miss ely of the northern home for friendless children returned to td philadelphia june 8 and took with them the 1 hoffman family of nine children these little ones were found in an utterly destitute condition as both parents and the eldest sister were drowned in the flood the ladies will return to assist in 14 the work of aiding the children who have lost all miss hinckley head of the childrens children aid society of philadelphia at ac the headquarters of the fourth ward morgue is one of the busiest young women in in the valley the applications forchia dren thus far exceeds the number of children thus far provided for miss hinckley says the object of her society is to unite parents and children rather than send them away from johnstown although the little ones will be provided for if their parents are not found nd thure there are plenty of johnstown people who will adopt these children and bring themus them up as aa citizens of johnstown instead of sending them outside miss maggie magg ie brooks the only resident member of this society who was not dot drowned is Isa a school teacher here she spends her time in hunting every house for miles around for parents and children when a child is found it is sent to headquarters and note and description made of it when any of the childs relatives or parents are found they are sent to headquarters and in this th Is way many families have been united reunited re the object ct of the western pennsylvania society is to furnish temporary as well weh as permanent homes for the orphans A dispatch from johnstown dated june 9 says the work of the registration of the survivors sarv vors of the flood to is going steadily on up to this evenin evening there were about reg registered astere and the list is still increasing the number lost is 18 now dow placed laced at by those who hold held 4 it would reach a week ago the conservative estimate is between and up to date there have bave been 1600 1500 bodies recovered the dispatches sent out from the foregoing information was received relate almost entirely to the progress made in re debris recovering bodies a administering m relief m e etc t 7 up to the latest advices advises there has been remarkably mar kably conflicting estimates of the number of lives lost figures from to have been given it will be a long time probably before an approximately correct estimate cambe can be male maie the pittsburg commercial prints the following account of the breaking ing of the dam from the lips of john G parke jr a civil engineer who was engaged on the grounds of I 1 the south fork club on thursday night the dam was in perfect condition and the water was not within seven feet of the top at that stage the lake is nearly dearly three miles long it rained mined very hard thursday night I 1 am told for I 1 slept too sound ay iy myself to hear bear it but when I 1 got up friday morning I 1 could see there was a flood fir the water was over the drive in front of the clubhouse and the level of the water in the lake had risen until it was only four feet below the top of the dam I 1 rode up to the head of the lake and saw that the woods were boiling full of water south fork and muddy run bun which emptied into the lake were fetching down trees lop logs cut timber mand nd stuff from a sawmill that was up in the woods in that direction this was about when I 1 returned col unger the president of the club hired twenty two Ital italians laDS and a number of farmers joined in to work on the dam altogether thirty men were ere at work A plough was run along the top of the dam and earth was thrown in the face of the dam to strengthen it at the same time a channel was dug on the west end of the dam to make a sluiceway sluice way there there were e about three feet of slate rock through which it was possible to cut but then we struck bedrock bed rock that was impossible to get into without blasting when we got the channel opened the water soon scoured down to the bedrock bed rock and a stream twenty feet wide and three deep rushed out on that end of the oam clam while the weir was letting out an enormous quantity on the other end notwithstanding these outlets the water kept rig rising dg at the rate of about ten inches an hour by 1130 1 I had bad made up my mind that it was impossible to save the dam and getting on my horse I 1 galloped down the road to south fork to warn the people of their danger the telegraph tower is a mile from the goow to and I 1 sent two men there to have messages sent to johnstown and other points below I 1 heard that the lady operator fainted when she hal hai sent off the news and had to be carried off the people of south fork had ample time to get to the high grounds and they were able to move their furniture too in fact only one person was wak drowned at south fork and he while attempting to fish something from the flood as it rolled by it was just 12 when the telegraph message was sent out so 80 that the people of johnstown tow n had over three hours warning As I 1 rode back to the dam I 1 expected almost every moment to meet the lake coming down on me ine but the dam was still AM intact although the water had reached the top at about one I 1 walked over the dam at that time the water was three inches deep on it and was gradually eating away the earth on the outer face As the stream rolled down the outer face it ke kept t wearing down the edge of the em embankment and I 1 saw it was merely a question of time I 1 then went up to the clubhouse club house bouse and got dinner and when I 1 returned 1 I saw that a good deal more of the darn dam had crumbled away the dam did not dot give way at a rough guess I 1 should say that there were sixty millions of tons of water in that lake and the pressure of that mass of water was increased by floods from two streams pouring into it but the dam would have stood it could the level of the lake have been kept below the top of the dam but the friction of the water pouring over the dam gradually wore it away from the outer face until the top became so thin that it gave way the break took place at three it was about ten feet wide at first and shallow but now that the flood had made a gap it grew wider with increasing rapidity and the lake went roaring down the valley that three miles of water was drained out in forty five minutes the downfall of those millions of tons was simply irresistible stories from the dam and boulders in the river bed were carried for males trees went down like WIX you ou may ent cut a mullein |