It is almost an impossibility to gain access to the region, and it was accomplished only after much difficulty in crossing the swiftly running stream. Standing at a point in this abode of thousands of dead the work of the great flood can be more adequately measured than from any one place in the devastated region. Here I first realized the appalling loss of life and the terrible destruction of property. It was about ten o'clock when the waters of Stony Creek rose, overflowed their banks and what is known as the "flats," which includes the entire business portion of the city of Johnstown. The Little Conemaugh was running high at the same time, and it had also overreached the limit of its banks. The water of both streams soon submerged the lower portion of the town. Up to this time there was no intimation that a terrible disaster was imminent. The water poured into the cellars of the houses in the lower districts and rose several inches in the streets, but as that had occurred before the people took no alarm. Shortly after twelve o'clock the first drowning occurred. This was not because of the deluge, it was simply the carelessness of the victim, who was a driver for the Cambria Iron Company, in stepping into a cellar which had been filled with water. The water continued to rise, and at twelve o'clock had reached that part of the city about a block from the point between Stony Creek and the Little Conemaugh. Topography of the Place. The topography of Johnstown is almost precisely like that of Pittsburgh, only in a diminished degree. Stony Creek comes in from the mountains on the northeast, and the Little Conemaugh comes in from the northwest, forming the Conemaugh at Johnstown, precisely as the Allegheny and Monongahela form the Ohio at Pittsburgh. On the west side of Stony Creek are mountains rising to a great height, and almost perpendicularly from the water. On the north side of the Conemaugh River mountains equally as high as those on Stony Creek confine that river to its course. The hills in Johnstown start nearly a half mile from the business section of the city. This leaves a territory between the two rivers of about four hundred acres. This was covered by costly buildings, factories and other important manufactories. When the waters of South Fork and Little Conemaugh broke over their banks into that portion of the city known as the "flats," the business community turned its attention to putting endangered merchandise in a place of safety. First Alarm. In the homes of the people the women began gathering household articles of any kind that may have been in the cellar. Little attention was paid to the water beyond this. Looking from the "flats" at Johnstown toward and following the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks, which wind along the Little Conemaugh, the village of Woodville stands, or did stand, within sight of the "flats," and is really a continuation of the city at this point.