Springfield, Ohio Storm
May
13, 1886
At Springfield
Springfield, O., May 14.--- Terrible damage was caused in this city by the heavy
rain-storm of Wednesday night. Rivers of water two feet deep rushed through the
streets. The culverts by which Mill creek is confined failed to hold it and the
stream
rushed through a railroad bridge and carrying a vast body of sand with it. It
damaged
many houses and swept the sand to the depth of five feet into streets and houses
in
its path and tore up 300 feet of Bee Line railroad tracks.
Ephrain Williams'
family
were sleeping in a lower room when the flood entered. All escaped but one child,
which was drowned. No other are reported lost. Three hundred feet of the
Indianapolis, Bloomington & Western track was swept away. The storm was
predicted to the day two weeks ago by Jonas Drury, the venerable weather
prophet,
of this city. The damage here will reach $30,000.
The Daily Review, Decatur, IL 15 May 1886
The storm did frightful damage in and about Springfield, Ohio. The High street
bridge, recently completed, was undermined and is now a mass of ruins.
Hundreds of families have been driven from their homes in the eastern and
southern portions of the city, many barely awakening in time to save their
lives. The scene in that quarter is one of frightful devastation. Dwellings are
washing full of soil and debris. The railroads are all locked up. The York
street sewer broke and tossed the boiler, engine and heavy machinery of
the Common Sense Engine company and immense Ohio Southern
railroad shops like feathers, and a four hundred foot bridge over the east
fork of the Little Miami river near Harman was swept away and surging down
the stream down the iron bridge two miles below.
The Kellogg Enterprise, Kellogg, IA 21 May 1886
Transcribed by
Nan
of Harry. Thanks Nan!
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