Show A CALAMITY IN PENNSYLVANIA A Hood flood Currying Carrying Burning Sweeps Down a Valley Causing the tuo Death of More than a Hundred People A dispatch from Pittsburg dated the says The oil regions of day to-day by a disaster of fire and water that 1 is only eclipsed in the history of this country by bythe the memorable flood at Johnstown just three years ago It Is Impossible at this hour midnight midnight mid mid- night to give anything like an accurate idea of the loss of life and property as chaos reigns throughout the devastated terrible conflagration still rages In Oil City It Is safe to say siy that not less than lives have been lost Nearly bodies have bare al already aX- aX ready been recovered and many people are still missing The number may far exceed but this is regarded as a conservative es es- es The property loss will reach far Into mil mit- lions At the thO loss Is estimated at at Oil City Meadville 00 and surrounding country probably more For nearly a month it has been raining throughout Western and Northern Pennsylvania Pennsyl- Pennsyl vania almost Incessantly and for the past three or four days dais the downpour In the devastated devas regions has beets been very heavy The con con- had bad converted all the small streams Into raging torrents so that when the cloudburst cloudburst cloud cloud- burst came this morning the streams were Boon eoon beyond their boundaries and the great body of water came sweeping down Oil Creels Creek to TItusville which Is Ia eighteen miles south of Its source The lower portion of the town was soon Inundated The flood came so quickly that the people had bad not time to reach a place of safety The water soon eoon swept a number of oil tanks down stream and way they were ignited The flames spread to tie tLe surrounding buildings and before they could be subdued five blocks had been burned The the scores of broken tanks ran Into the creek and was Ignited by floating debris and In the deck creek was n-as ablaze from shore to shore death and destruction tion following In Its wake Everything took fire and by the tha time It reached Oil City all the bridges between be- be tween the two points were consumed Oil City 1 is eighteen miles from The fire started by the exploding of a large oil tank Several people were killed by this explosion and the fire came so suddenly and unexpectedly that very little If any prop prop- j was saved along the stream A great number of people were standing on the river bank at Oil City ithen the burning oil began to flow by and a stampede ensued which resulted in great loss of life Other oil tanks exploded as the burning oil reached them and the scene was one that beggars de- de Titusville has a population of and andI I Oil City |