In front of the Central Union Telegraph office the water was still running so swiftly that horses could not go through it without swimming. One boat went by with two men in it, rowing desperately, trying to keep the bow to the waves. The boat overturned, but both men escaped drowning by swimming to a lamp post. They clung to the post for half an hour before a rope could be thrown to them. After repeated casts the line fell near enough to them to be caught, and the men were drawn into the second story window of the building.
The telephone employees in the building fished chairs, dry goods boxes and a quantity of other floating property from the flood. The debris swept down the main business street with such force that every plate glass window was smashed.
Only one sizable building had collapsed up to noon so far as the watchers in the telephone office could learn. This structure, an old one, was a three-story affair, near Ludlow Street, occupied by a harness manufacturing concern.
70,000 IMPRISONED BY THE WATER
More than 70,000 persons either were unable to reach their homes or, held in their waterlocked houses, were unable to reach land.
While those marooned in the offices and hotels were in no immediate danger of drowning there was no way food or drinking water could reach them until the flood receded. Those in the residences, however, were in constant danger both by flood and fire. First the frailer buildings were swept into the stream, many showing the faces of women and children peering from the windows. These were followed by more substantial brick buildings, until it became evident that no house in the flood zone was safe.
The houses as a rule lasted but a few blocks before disintegrating.
Incidents without number were narrated of persons in the flooded districts waving handkerchiefs and otherwise signaling for aid, being swept away before the eyes of the watchers on the margin of the waters. Many of the rescue boats were swept by the current against what had been fire plugs, trees and houses. They were crushed. Canoes and rowboats shared the same fate. What life existed in the district which the water covered was in constant danger and helpless until the flood subsided.
Bodies were found as far out as Wayne Avenue, which is more than a mile from the river. At Fifth and Brown Streets the water reached a height of ten feet. At least one of those drowned met death in the Algonquin Hotel.
The rumor that the St. Elizabeth Hospital with 600 patients had been swept away, which gained circulation Tuesday night, proved to have been false.