Opening the text

History of the Johnstown Flood: Including all the Fearful Record; the Breaking of the South Fork Dam; the Sweeping Out of the Conemaugh Valley; the Over-Throw of Johnstown; the Massing of the Wreck at the Railroad Bridge; Escapes, Rescues, Searches for Survivors and the Dead; Relief Organizations, Stupendous Charities, etc., etc., With Full Accounts also of the Destruction on the Susquehanna and Juniata Rivers, and the Bald Eagle Creek.Johnson, Willis Fletcher

History

History of the Johnstown Flood: Including all the Fearful Record; the Breaking of the South Fork Dam; the Sweeping Out of the Conemaugh Valley; the Over-Throw of Johnstown; the Massing of the Wreck at the Railroad Bridge; Escapes, Rescues, Searches for Survivors and the Dead; Relief Organizations, Stupendous Charities, etc., etc., With Full Accounts also of the Destruction on the Susquehanna and Juniata Rivers, and the Bald Eagle Creek.

Name: History of the Johnstown Flood: Including all the Fearful Record; the Breaking of the South Fork Dam; the Sweeping Out of the Conemaugh Valley; the Over-Throw of Johnstown; the Massing of the Wreck at the Railroad Bridge; Escapes, Rescues, Searches for Survivors and the Dead; Relief Organizations, Stupendous Charities, etc., etc., With Full Accounts also of the Destruction on the Susquehanna and Juniata Rivers, and the Bald Eagle Creek.
Author: Johnson, Willis Fletcher

Johnson, Willis Fletcher

Floods -- Pennsylvania -- Johnstown (Cambria County)

Men and women, in dozens, in pairs, and singly; children, boys, big and
little, and wee babies, were there among the awful confusion of water,
drowning, gasping, struggling, and fighting desperately for life. Two
men, on a tiny raft, shot into the swiftest part of the current. They
crouched stolidly, looking at the shores, while between them, dressed in
white, and kneeling with her face turned heavenward, was a girl six or
seven years old. She seemed stricken with paralysis until she came
opposite the tower, and then she turned her face to the operator. She
was so close they could see big tears on her cheeks, and her pallor was
as death. The helpless men on shore shouted to her to keep up her
courage, and she resumed her devout attitude, and disappeared under the
trees of a projecting point a short distance below. "We couldn't see her
come out again," said the operator, "and that was all of it."




CHAPTER XIX.


An interesting story of endeavor was related on Monday by a
correspondent of the New York _Sun_, who made his way to the scene of
disaster. This is what he wrote:--

Although three days have passed since the disaster, the difficulty of
reaching the desolated region is still so great that, under ordinary
circumstances, no one would dream of attempting the trip. The
Pennsylvania Railroad cannot get within several miles of Johnstown, and
it is almost impossible to get on their trains even at that. They run
one, two, or three trains a day on the time of the old through trains,
and the few cars on each train are crowded with passengers in a few
minutes after the gates open. Then the sale of tickets is stopped, the
gates are closed, and all admission to the train denied. No extra cars
will be put on, no second section sent out, and no special train run on
any account, for love or money. The scenes at the station when the
gates are shut are sorrowful. Men who have come hundreds of miles to
search for friends or relatives among the dead stand hopelessly before
the edict of the blue-coated officials from eight in the morning until
one in the afternoon. There is no later train on the Pennsylvania road
out of Pittsburgh, and the agony of suspense is thus prolonged. Besides
that, the one o'clock train is so late in getting to Sang Hollow that
the work of beginning a search is practically delayed until the next
morning.

[Illustration: RUINS OF THE CAMBRIA IRON WORKS.]

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.