The storm played havoc with the railroads, delaying trains and adding to the difficulty of moving freight. It made so much trouble for the New Haven that the company last night issued a notice saying that "on account of storms and accumulation of loaded cars" only live stock, perishable freight, food products, and coal would be carried over portions of the line.
Adrift in the gale, fifteen canal barges and cargo scows from South Amboy, N. J., went ashore at Sandy Hook after those on board, including twenty women and children, had suffered from exposure and one man washed overboard from the barge Henrietta had been drowned. The California and the Stockholm, with passengers on board and inbound, were delayed by the storm and will reach port to-day.
The wind in Newark unroofed the almshouse, injuring two aged women, blew down buildings, smashed windows, and crippled the entire wire service of the city....[22]
(Then follows a detailed account of the dead, the injured, and the delay of traffic.)
[22] New York Herald, December 27, 1915.
COLD WAVE ON WAY HERE
Indianapolis to-day stands on the brink between rain and snow. Before to-morrow dawns it may bend slightly one way or the other, meteorologically speaking, and the result will be little flakes of snow or little drops of water. It is forecast that to-morrow its feet will slip entirely and it will be plunged into the abyss of cold weather. The forecast is the work of the weather man, who has some reputation locally and elsewhere as a forecaster of questionable accuracy.
Cold weather is drifting this way on northwest winds, says the weather man, and soon will be hard by in the offing, ready to pounce on Indianapolis. The fate of Indianapolis is to be the fate of Indiana also, and of the entire Middle West, for the weather man is no respecter of localities, and when he once gets started forecasts with utter abandon....
The Northwest has experienced a drop of 20 degrees in temperature and the cold wave is rapidly sweeping this way. It is due to reach Indianapolis to-morrow morning. The local forecast is for cloudy to-night and Wednesday, with probabilities of rain or snow, and colder Wednesday. It was the same for the state, but rain was predicted for the south part and snow for the north.
The temperature in Indianapolis at 7 o'clock this morning was 38 degrees, a drop of 6 degrees being recorded in the last twenty-four hours. The coming cold wave is expected to give this part of the country its first real touch of winter. The temperature hovered near the zero mark in the northwest. The weather bureau reported snow in Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, and Minnesota.[23]