BRIDGES SWEPT AWAY
Bridges were swept away, barring those who would have fled to places of safety. The rush of waters caught hundreds in their homes, and as the darkness fell the scramble to escape became wild and foreboding. Those who were able to do anything sent their appeals for aid to outlying cities before the wires had absolutely failed.
Added to the terrors of flood and darkness was that of fire. In the wild rush for places of safety that followed the first warning of the danger from the bursting levees, lamps were toppled over, electric wires were crossed and soon flames were mounting high in many sections of the city.
Representative H. S. Bigelow introduced a bill in the legislature to appropriate $100,000 for the flood sufferers in Ohio, the money to be handled under the direction of the Governor.
With no change in the number of reported dead in this city, estimates on Wednesday placed the probable dead at from one hundred to one hundred and fifty. Columbus was still being drenched and torn by flood waters of the Scioto and Olentangy Rivers. The scene of devastation on the west side was partly made visible to residents of other sections of the city for the first time in two days. The isolation of the western section again became real when the last remaining bridge gave way before the torrents.
Numerous persons who were considered conservative asserted that they saw scores of bodies float down stream and dozens of persons carried away in their houses.
Miss Esther Eis, rescued from her home on the west side, said she saw the house with George Griffin, wife and seven children collapse and disappear, and another house containing John Way, wife and five children, break up in the flood.
Besides the actual tragedies that were enacted in connection with the flood the most exciting incident occurred at the announcement that the storage dam, several miles north of the city, had broken, sending its great flood to augment that of the Scioto River.
The scene that followed was one of wild panic in all parts of the city. Patrolmen, soldiers and citizens in automobiles, tooting horns, ringing gongs and calling through megaphones a warning to every one to seek safety in the higher parts of the east side, sent thousands in flight, while many, stunned by the supposed impending disaster, collapsed from fear or gave way to hysteria.
It was more than an hour before the report was officially denied. Police officials assert that the report was made to them by persons connected with the military end of the patrols.