The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, June 1, 1903, Page 1

LU BAN FRANCISCO MONDAY, JUNE 1, 1903. 1 \H] l"ME ch—h0< PRICE FIVE CENTS DELUGE IN THE MIDDLE WEST COSTS FIVE HUNDRED LIVES AND THE LOSS OF TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS IN PROPERTY:; THREE SCORE THE NUMBER *R INJURED IN COAST LINE WRECK I l FLOOD'S TERRIBLE RECORD g THE DEAD, North Topeka, Kan. (estimated) Kansas City and Armourdale, Kan. (estimated).. Council Grove, Kan. Des Moines, Iowa... Other Iowa cities. ... ssssssesssscsss ®000c0000000s050m 8505000008000 00] g Nalencla Ran: .0 0o i RTINSy Ey Kansas City, Mo.......... R P R R S S ceon § Qklahoma City, O, . T.....c.cecciveeeennens coscscct Messcssai s I DYING FROM EXPOSURE. ! North Topeka, Kan. (estimated).......cca cececscsssccncsscon 50 | MISSING. | Noeth Topele, Kan. ... 0 ool e S dn e v HOMELESS. Kansas City, Armourdale and Argentine, Kan. oo se s -35,000 f North Topeka, Kan... ..c.eevvecaton seee P 10,000 Des:Molnes, Jows. ..........icuiciiivivivas sosannasasoss Other Kansas points (eutimated). x Other Iowa points FINANCIAL LOSSES. North Topeka, Kan. (estimated)..., wseis w- 3 Ss,aoo,o'oo A Kansas City and Armourdale, Kan... 4,000,000 Other: Kansas points. - 2,000,000 “Des Moines, Iowa....:..ccenevaves 2,000,000 Lincoln, Beatrice and Madison, Nebr.....c....cocuu.eu 800,000 | Crops in Middle West and miscellaneous...... ......... 3,000,000 ! | -Total number of dead......s. BESEPRL B E S E O 327 Total number of missing . 200 Total number dying. . 53 sabia s0 Total number homeless PR B G 45,000 Total financial losses. ... . ee-aen .$18,800,000 fiw{_flfé BT | IV LTTF et -5rRs i ! B ‘ Flames in | | . Topeka opP 1 a ~ ’ H Ma Daring Work| | : . of Rescue ||| passed. . | 3 ous has the Partles {11 R ved itself to-day t 112 s s waters, but to-night, | ¥ R R e T L T e | }’ imperceptil floating bodies seen, twenty; per-| |, | sc >1y~ missing’; 200 ; houses burned, | |+ as a result of fire starting in lum-| |3 | ar | ber: yards from lime, probably| 2 i as fluttered all day. 20q; banks collapsed, two;|-|; ¢ ! wever, ( n\ Engineer Mc( wholesale grocery stores flooded, | 1 he | two; big business -blocks almost | ready to crumble, fifty ;- wholesale commission-houses deserted, six; g - H E3 Rock Island trains containing 130 F 3 S f H * C r | passengers held here by high wa- | & IOOd Waters ; Ce"es O OI'I‘OI' imn 81'5 | ter; city water works plant use-| § H . S Are Slowly Dashing Into Sea. The known drowned are Carl S b -—_— Rupp, f)r\';llc‘}\’up]): two Rupp ll Sldlng NTA BARBARA,|wrecked cars and nothing was S g ‘Q.vr,“' & H.’I.(.arrens fil'ei';‘.?z S ¥ May 31.—The appall-|removed. Strewn over the sands or i ng the agon-|old son. wenty unidentifie E o RN -l and a il ails izing s of inhabit- | bodies have been seen in the tor- | 1€ans of arriving at even an ap- ng. and. s yet unex and- along the embankment :Yere ”‘r< PR s '_‘ 6% proximate number of the victims. 5 plained disaster tl‘xvdt.beA scoges of napkins ;mt‘l handker- ]a).' . 1 the roofs of | rer s f ! [ The water is so high and the cur- Ie]]. the southbound coast .|Em|Fe(l chiefs saturated with blood. jouses; v water creeping| ILeading men who have made a . train on the Southern Pacific line "ml_\ subsid- | careful examination of the flood 100ds reflecting | and all of its conditions give 250 , the capital city|as the probable number of lives t memorable | lost. A more conservative esti- passed the rent so strong that all that can be done now is to rescue those in the buildings surrounded by wa-. ter. At least three days will elapse before a fairly accurate estimate TNION PEFOT, AN SGS CT % 2 B l ENES IN MISSOURI CITY WHERE THE DAMAGE WROUGHT BY at Punta Gorda last night when passenger-laden cars plunged from the cliff to the surf, was re- sponsible for the injury of nearly They had been used as temporary bandages to the injured. Up the bank to the track forty feet above the wrecked cars was a bloody trail where the in- wounds of the .{th lay X existence. To|mate places the number of dead Sl it bo e { THE FLOOD ALREADY HAS MOUNTED FAR INTO THE MILLIONS, | |sixty persons and the loss of | jured had been carried to the re- this unce Hlflmym le ¢ n was|at 175. The high number is as SV el S ] WHILE THOUSANDS OF RESIDENTS HAVE LOST THEIR HOMES. i | much valuable railroad property. | lief train’ which had been sent to added a cold and dismal rain. | likely to be correct as the lower. i L - The ardor of t} of heroic men was rescue work | The number of dead is merely t abated in|a matter of estimate. T\\'cnty the least by the cor ns which | members of rescuing parties tell ed them. For long,|of having seen men, women and hours, knee deep in water | children drop from houses, to be sometimes in water up to|swept away by the flood, and oth- necks, they worked with|ers tell of men who, terrified at might and main. To-night they | the approach of the fire, dropped can proudly point to 300 or more | into the water, where they sank rescued persoms, who otherwise|and did not reappear. would have been swept away in| ent. R s stated, the present con- dition of the food is this: hundred and seventy-five to .’00} Neither does it include the num- persons drowned; 8000 persons|ber who are supposed to have lost without homes ; $4,000,000 loss of { their lives in the fire. In the lat- groperty; identified dead, five;|ter class there is absolutely no confront Sreury their This estimated number of dead "rn(« not include the large num- | ber classed as missing, who can- One | not otherwise be accounted for. the a1 periled is being prosecuted with vigor. Better results have char- acterized the efforts of the organ- ized forces since 4 o’clock this| afternoon than oiurmg the preced- ing twenty-four hours. Two lit- tle steam launches are now puf- fing up and down the river, pick- ing up survivors. A trainload of small boats was in service to-day, but they were useless in battling against the mighty current. A wire cable has been stretched across the Kansas-avenue bridge. To this was attached a sand-dip, and refugees are being brought across in this manner. Continued on Page 3, Column 7._ Encroaching Waters Cause Enormous Dam- age to Kansas City Packmg Houses. ANSAS CITY Mo., May 31.— With the waters of the Kaw and Missouri rivers nearly four feet above the disastrous level of 1881 and their swollen tides spread over twelve square miles of the city and its suburbs, Kansas City to-night is enduring the worst flood of its history. In the valley of the Kaiv, or Kansas, River, between this city and Kan- sas City, Kans., report has it that a number of hves have been lost. ,One' report says fourteen and another fifty, but in the midst of demoralization of. traffic and the ordinary means of communi- cation it is impossible to verify these reports. The financial loss has been in- creasing all day and bids fair to continue. The heaviest loss is at Armourdale, where the damage to the packing industry and others is placed at $2,500,000. Argen- ' Continued on Page 3, Column 1. “"had Dbeen In a number of hospitals, ho- of the unfortunates, painfully cut and bruised, but slowly recover- ing under the skillful ministra- tions of a host of physicians and nurses. One woman who was on the luckless train, however, ap- pears to have very little chance of survival. This is Mrs. H. C. Smith of Los Angeles. Frank A. Christmas, a San Francisco trav- eling man, is also in a very seri- ous condition. When daylight dawned upon the scene of the horror the wreck had not been touched. After the removal of the injured a guard placed tels and residences here are many about the| convey them to a hospital. Here and there along the sands were blotches red showing where some unfortu- nate victim of the wreck had been laid after being removed from the demolished cars. Inside the cars there was hardly a piece of metal, seat or other fixture which was not broken. Through the roofs of the cars were gaping holes, and on the floors, sides and even on the ceilings were streaks of blood, showing where the passengers had been hurled while the cars were turning over in their plunge down the bank. If there of — Continued on Page 2, Column §