The Flying Reporter

by Lewis E. Theiss

“Get my camera,” he shouted to Carl, “and take a snap or two of the scene. Get a picture that shows the whole valley under water, with Northend in the centre of it.”

Carl could handle a camera, and leaning through an open window, he got several good pictures. The rising sun was shining down into the valley by this time, illuminating it well.

Now Jimmy brought his ship down in an easy glide until he was not more than 200 feet above the flood. He flew back and forth over the town. Carl snapped pictures as they flew and Jimmy watched every feature of the scene before him. Now he could see many people looking out of the upper floors of their homes. He could trace the course of the river by the line of debris and wreckage. For the flood had gone tearing through the city, wrecking, smashing, demolishing everything in its pathway. Before it had been swept a vast mass of material, consisting of outbuildings, uprooted trees, broken telephone poles, railroad ties, old boats, wooden bridges, sawlogs, pulp timber, porches, fences, boardwalks, demolished homes, and a thousand other objects that the rushing waters had wrenched loose or broken down or torn up. And all this mass of debris, jamming at the bottle neck, had backed the water up and submerged the town. Jimmy had read his map aright.

As he flew, Jimmy made mental note of striking things he saw. Here was a house tilting at an unbelievable angle, its underpinning evidently washed away. Here were motor cars standing on their roofs, only their four wheels showing above the flood. Here were the remains of an iron bridge that must have weighed scores of tons. Yet the iron work was rolled into a great mass, like a ball of rope, and the whole thing rested on a smashed front porch of a home. The entire front of the house was caved in by the force of the blow struck by the iron. Here were railroad cars turned upside down.

Through the centre of the town was a wide gap between rows of buildings. At first Jimmy did not catch the significance of this. He thought it was the river bed. Then something reminded him of the stream as he had seen it a few miles above Northend. There it was only a little river, a few rods wide. This breach in the centre of the town was of vast width. Suddenly Jimmy understood. Whole blocks of houses had been washed away. They must be jammed up with the other debris at the bottle neck below. He shuddered at the thought. The loss of life must have been appalling.

Along either side of this wide pathway of death, the flood waters had left their marks. Debris of every conceivable sort had been washed up on either side of the furrow the flood had plowed through the town, and there a million odd things had lodged. Old boxes, chicken-coops, boards, timbers, door-steps, wooden gates, tin cans, and a multitude of other things had been forced in between houses or up on porches, or through first floor windows, until the scene was terrible beyond description. It was plain enough where the wall of water from the broken dam had gone surging through the town. Like a giant among pygmies, it had mowed down everything in its path.

Back and forth Jimmy flew over the distressed city. On the flat tops of business buildings he saw many people. The upper floors of buildings seemed to teem with people. On the hills opposite the town he now saw figures moving. He judged they were people who had reached the heights before the flood overwhelmed the city, or else they were folks from the neighborhood who had come to the assistance of the marooned townspeople. Long ago, all those who could be rescued had been rescued, or had gone to their deaths. How many of them there were and who they were Jimmy could not even guess. But he knew the total must be terrible. He could not help to save anybody, but he could get into touch with the survivors and get the story of the disaster. He began to look about for some means of accomplishing this end.

Near the centre of the town was a building that stood up one or two stories higher than any other structure in the city. It was a great squarish building, that looked as firm as Gibraltar. Jimmy had noticed it as soon as he reached the town. He couldn’t help noticing it. And he also saw that there were people on the flat roof. Now he flew toward this building, dropping as low as he dared to come. Suddenly his eye shone with pleasure. On the front of the structure he caught sight of a large sign, with the gilded name “Northend Daily News.” He glanced at the group of people on the roof. He was so close to them that he could almost tell the color of their eyes. To his astonishment he saw that a desk had been carried to the roof, together with many chairs, and that a man was seated at the desk, busily typewriting.

The sight stirred Jimmy’s heart. “It’s the editor of the Northend News writing the story of the flood. I’ll bet a dollar it is,” thought Jimmy. “If only I can get that story, the Morning Press will have the biggest scoop in years.”

He pulled out a pad and scribbled on it as he flew: “Have you the story of the flood? Can I get it from you? I am from the New York Press.” Then he turned to Carl. “In my tool kit you’ll find a large spool of safety wire,” he said. “Get that out, put a weight on it, and tie this note to it.”