Copyright by George Grantham Bain. Carrying on the work of rescuing Dayton flood sufferers from their houses in the boats made for the purpose at the National Cash Register Factory

[link to high-resolution image]

With military glasses rescuers standing on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad near Center Avenue could see several dead forms lying on the roof of a building to the east.

Four babies were reported to have been born in a school house on the hilltop.

According to those who invaded the stricken district, the churches, big state institutions and storerooms in the hilltop section were crowded with refugees. They tell stories of indescribable horrors.

Former Mayor George S. Marshall, who was in telephone communication with Cecil Randall, his law partner, said that Mr. Randall estimated the death toll at several hundreds. Throngs of excited groups of people from the flood-stricken section of the city who were crowded into the temporary rescue quarters asserted that the estimate of Mr. Randall was not exaggerated.

Neither the extent of the awful tragedies enacted during the sweeping away of homes nor the exact death tolls could be known for days until the mass of wreckage, houses and uprooted trees which were strewn on the level lowlands south of the city were uncovered. This mass of debris was under several feet of water, with swift currents running in many directions.

Many of those rescued told of escaping from their homes by fractions of minutes, just before the rushing waters swept their homes away and crushed them like eggshells against bridges. Scores of entire families, these people assert, were swept down with their houses in the swift current.

Every available inch of space in the Columbus State Hospital for the Insane and Mt. Carmel Hospital on the hilltop was occupied by refugees.