The great waste where the city stood looked a little different to-day. Some attempt was made to clear up the rubbish, and fires were burning in a dozen places to get rid of it. Tents for the soldiers and some of the sufferers were put up in the smooth stretch of sand where a great, five story hardware store used to stand. The dead animals that were here and there in the débris were removed, to the benefit of the towns-people's health.
Curious things come to light where the rubbish was cleared away. The solid cobblestone pavement had been scooped up by the force of the water and in some places swept so far away that there was not a sign of it. Behind a house that was resting on one corner was found a wickerwork baby carriage full of mud, but not injured or scratched in the least nor yet buried in the mud, but looking as if it had been rolled there and left. Very close to it was a piece of railroad iron that must have been carried half a mile, bent as it it were but common wire. Exactly on the site of a large grocery store was a box of soap and a bundle of clothespins, while of all the brick and stone, of which the store was built, and all the heavy furniture it contained there was not the slightest trace.
Many articles of wearing apparel were found here, but no bodies could be discovered in the whole stretch of the plain, from which it is inferred that most of the deaths occurred at the gorge or else the flood swept them far away.
Reminders of a Broken Home.
One of the few buildings that are left in this part of town is the fine house of Mr. Geranheiser, of the Cambria Iron Company. It presents a queer spectacle—that is common here but has not often been seen before. The flood reached almost to the second floor and was strong enough to cut away about half the house, leaving the rest standing. The whole interior of the place can be seen just as the frightened inmates left it. The carpets are torn up from the first floor, but the pictures are still hanging on the walls and an open piano stands against the wall full of mud; a Brussels carpet being halfway out of the second story on the side where the wreck was and showing exactly how high the water came. There was a centre table in the room and an open book on it. Chairs stood about the room and the pictures were on the walls, and half of the room was gone miles away.
Seven Acres of Wreckage.
Just below the bare plain where the business block of Johnstown stood, and above the stone arch bridge on which the Pennsylvania Railroad crossed the river, are seven acres of the wreckage of the flood. The horrors that have been enacted in that spot, the horrors that are seen there every hour, who can attempt to describe? Under and amid that mass of conglomerate rubbish are the remains of at least one thousand persons who died the most frightful of deaths.
This is the place where the fire broke out within twenty minutes after the flood. It has burned ever since. The stone arch bridge acted as a dam to the flood, and five towns were crushing each other against it. A thousand houses came down on the great wave of water, and were held there a solid mass in the jaws of a Cyclopean vise.
A kitchen stove upset. The mass took fire. A thousand people were imprisoned in these houses. A thousand more were on the roofs. For most of them there was no escape. The fire swept on from house to house. The prisoners saw it coming and shrieked and screamed with terror, and ran up and down their narrow quarters in an agony of fear.
Sights to Freeze Their Blood.