Railroad and wagon bridges over the Miami River were swept away. The telephone operator at Phoneton said that from his window in the station he had seen a bridge one mile north of Dayton collapse and another bridge crossing the river at Tadmor, eleven miles north of Dayton, was expected to give way at any moment. Communication between Phoneton and Dayton, the operator said, was only intermittent, as the only available wire was being used by the linemen in their efforts to restore service. Troy and Tippecanoe City, north of Dayton, were both flooded and many people took refuge on the roofs of their homes. Below Dayton vast acreages were seas of yellow. Farms were lakes, roads were raceways through which raced the swollen streams. Telegraph service was maimed, and all sorts of communication was well-nigh impossible. THOUSANDS MAROONED Crowded in the upper stories of tall office buildings and residences, two miles each way from the center of the town, were thousands of persons whom it was impossible to approach. At Wyoming Street, three miles beyond what has heretofore been considered the danger line, water was running eight feet deep. The Western Union operator at Dodson, Ohio, said the office was filled with foreigners who had fled from Dayton. Looters were shooting people down in the streets, according to these refugees. They also reported that the Fifth Street bridge at Dayton had washed down against the railroad bridge and arrangements were being made to dynamite both structures. This bridge was dynamited in the afternoon, but the effect was not felt to any marked degree. The foreigners who sought refuge in the Dodson telegraph office were panic-stricken and told wild stories of the flood, saying nearly every part of the town was under water and the conditions becoming more serious. The breaking of the Tarleton reservoir, which supplies the drinking water, left the city without water and added great danger of typhoid in the use of flood water. Frank Purviance, an employee of the Terre Haute, Indianapolis and Eastern Traction Company, at Dayton, over the long-distance telephone said scores had been drowned there. "They're dying like rats in their homes; bodies are washing around the streets and there's no relief in sight," Purviance said. MANY CREEP TO SAFETY BY CABLE At Wyoming Station, on the South Side, where the National Cash Register Company centered its efforts at rescue, many saved their lives by creeping on a telephone cable, a hundred feet above the flood. At first linemen crept along the cables, carrying tow ropes to which flat-bottomed boats were attached. When the flood became so fierce that the boats no longer were able to make way against it, men and women crept along the cables to safety. Others, less daring, saw darkness fall and gave up hope of rescue. Those willing to risk their lives in the attempt to rescue found themselves helpless in the face of the water.