Washed Away: How the Great Flood of 1913, America's Most Widespread Natural Disaster, Terrorized a Nation and Changed It Forever

by Geoff Williams

  Shortly after, at 1:30 A.M., the Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train No. 3 came roaring toward the Mad River and onto the bridge that was now mostly no longer there. The engine fell through the rest of the bridge, and gravity brought at least several more passenger cars into the Mad River.

  Incredibly, there weren’t many deaths in the train crash. The passengers were able to stagger to their feet and climb out of the windows, shaken but alive. The engineer, James Wood, and the fireman, C. E. Tilton, were first into the river, but somehow survived. The brakeman, Elwood Howells, drowned.

  Claibourne, Ohio, about 2 A.M.

  Pearl Clifton Biddle, a 34-year-old family man and roofer specializing in tin, awakened to hear frantic barking. Biddle’s dog slept under the back porch, and so Biddle opened the door, expecting a coyote, a cat, perhaps a burglar—but what he saw was much harder to comprehend.

  His dog was in the back yard—swimming.

  Biddle didn’t let the surreal sight delay him for too long. He ran out into the rain and rescued his dog and waded out to his chicken house to bring his chickens in, probably with the help of his wife, Lillian, and their nine-year-old daughter, Florence. Once that was done, he raced to the pigpen, managing to steer seven piglets and their mother through the water and to his back porch. Then, leaving the animals behind on his porch, he ran through the neighborhood, a modern-day Paul Revere on foot, warning of an impending danger, pounding on doors and waking up everyone he could find.

  Biddle must have missed Alma Donohoe, sixty, for she woke up a few hours later. She discovered water lapping against the shore of her mattress, and terrified, she waded into her living room. She must have been amused—at least later when she thought about it—to see her kitten, floating in the room, alive and well, a passenger in a sewing basket. She and her kitten then hurried to her younger brother Joseph’s home.

  Miss Donohoe was fortunate, however. She escaped the flood with an amusing story to share with her family, friends, and hopefully Pearl Biddle.

  Delaware, Ohio, about 2 A.M.

  Approximately twenty miles southeast of Richwood, about the time Biddle was banging on doors, nobody in Delaware needed to be told that a flood was coming. The Olentangy River had taken over eight blocks of the town that resides twenty-seven miles north of Columbus, Ohio. Delaware’s 45-year-old mayor, Bertrand V. Leas, who a few short years earlier had been a hardware store owner, first rowed his wife, Marie, and two young children, Florence and Bertrand Jr., to safety and then went back for his neighbor.

  Samuel Jones, the patriarch of the family, wasn’t there, possibly because he was back at the lumber yard where he was a foreman. Mrs. Sophrona Jones and her fifteen-year-old daughter, Esther, were at the house, however, along with at least two neighbors, Hazel Dunlap, twenty-two years old, and an unknown woman, possibly Hazel’s mother. Guided by a lantern and the other lantern light from other rescue boats in the neighborhood, Leas began taking his passengers through the fast-moving current. The rain was dumping on them, and the water and sky were dark, but while they couldn’t see what was out there, the sound of rain and rushing water and debris crashing by made it abundantly clear that maybe they were better off not knowing.

  And then it happened just twenty feet later: a wave, crashing over the boat and knocking everyone into the water. Somehow, the mayor clung to Mrs. Jones and managed to keep her afloat until rescuers could get to her. But they couldn’t get to him. Mayor Leas was swept away.

  But not for long. He grabbed on to a rope hanging from the window of a lumber building and climbed up to the roof. Rescuers, however, thought he was a goner, and initial reports went to newspapers across the country that Mayor B. V. Leas had drowned, along with twenty other residents. The numbers were a little off, but they were grim nonetheless—it was probably closer to fourteen who died, and among them were three of the mayor’s passengers: Esther Jones, Hazel Dunlap, and the unknown woman.

  Deep into the night, still in Delaware, Ohio

  Throughout the previous day in the college town of Delaware, Ohio, the flooding at first was subtle: six inches deep in some of the lower streets. But as the day wore on, it was a foot deep. By evening, the Olentangy River had covered the entire lower part of the town, with the second stories and roofs sticking out of the water.

  Florence Wyman, a student at Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, later said that about two hundred young women in Monnett Hall, their dormitory, walked the floors and cried and prayed. Their university was on the highest hill in the town, but they were only a few blocks away from homes that were deluged. Even if the women closed their windows, they could still hear the water’s roar and people, on their roofs, begging and screaming for help. Every once in a while, the young coeds would hear a woman shrieking, which everyone took as the sound of someone seeing a loved relative losing their grip or footing and falling into the water.

  There were no boats at the university, and with it being dark, and the town drenched by what was now a cold drizzle, there was nothing anyone could realistically do until morning.

  Tiffin, Ohio, middle of the night

  It was still raining. People in the northern half of Ohio were recognizing the danger that they were in, and the streets of Tiffin were emptying. But it could be difficult to know what to do when your family wasn’t together. Theresa Klingshirn, nine Klingshirn children ranging from a nineteen-year-old to a two-year-old, and her son-in-law, Ray Hostler, and a future daughter-in-law, Regina Ranker, were inside the house. The evening before, when her husband George left for work on the night shift at the lime kiln, when it was apparent that the streets were dangerous but he believed the home was their sanctuary, the father and husband had put on his coat and stressed to the family: “In any event, do not leave the house.”

  Mrs. Klingshirn listened. Even if he hadn’t said those words, the 39-year-old mother might well have wondered where to go in the middle of the night and surely fretted that her husband might come to the house, believe they were still inside, and attempt to rescue them. But hearing that directive and probably something of a plea probably kept coming back to the whole family.

  Staying put must have seemed like the wise course of action to remain where they were, even as several neighbors on East Davis Street packed up and fled; but Mrs. Klingshirn, Ray Hostler, Regina Ranker, and the rest of the children would have been far better off if one of the adults had persuaded everything to enact the old chestnut, well worn even in 1913: better be safe than sorry. It was an expression made for moments like these.

  Columbus, Ohio, 3 A.M.

  The first call for help to the police came in from a house on West Mound Street. The entire area, particularly the Hocking Valley railroad yards, was flooded. The authorities were ready for flooding, they thought. Columbus’s weather forecaster had warned the city the evening before of possible flooding, and throughout the night, they had been patrolling the streets in the rain. Not that anyone expected anything all that serious.

  Dayton, Ohio, 4 A.M.

  Mr. E. T. Herbig, the traffic chief of the Bell phone exchanges, had issued orders to the operators to clue him in if anyone saw anything unusual; and having been wakened throughout the night by calls of water rising, the bleary-eyed telephone man came to the company to start work.

  Still, people downtown didn’t think a full-fledged flood would reach them. Fred Aring, a telegraph operator, noted in his diary that at about 4 A.M. on this day, “We had received meager reports from operators in north and south of Dayton that the Miami River had been and still was rising rapidly.” But there were no levees in South Dayton, noted Aring, and so some flooding “was to be expected.… Certainly no general flood is expected.”

  Dayton, Ohio, 4:30 A.M.

  The Platt Iron Works’ day engineer was roused awake by a neighbor who informed him that the water was spilling over the levees, and while it wasn’t much, it was coming over faster with every passing minute. The day engineer made a few quick adjustments to his home—taking
some family photos, valuables, or important papers upstairs—and raced to the plant, where he gave the night engineer and watchman the scoop. They blew the whistle for the next twenty minutes.

  Many people heard it, as far as five miles away, but many people had no earthly idea what it meant. People like John P. Foose, a Civil War veteran, didn’t know what was happening, but he looked outside at the torrential downpour, and, as he mentioned in a letter to his brother, he saw a troubling sight that gave him an idea of what was coming: “Across the street, the people were up and moving their things upstairs.”

  About twenty minutes later, as the Platt Iron Works whistle sputtered to a stop, Foose’s two daughters ran to the river to see what was happening. They came back to report that the water was as high as the levee. Foose and the family wolfed down a quick breakfast and began taking the rugs upstairs.

  In at least one part of Dayton—a Mrs. Mildred Grothjan would recall years later—one man was walking the rainy streets, shouting through a megaphone, telling everyone to flee for the hills: a flood was coming. But nobody, according to Grothjan, believed him, and everyone in the vicinity remained in their homes.

  Charles and Viola Adams awakened, not from the Platt Iron Works, although they were within range of the factory, and not from a guy with a megaphone. What made them sit up in their beds were the loud voices of neighbors outside their bedroom window; they were rapping on doors of the houses on their street.

  Charles and Viola, hoping their eleven-month-old twins wouldn’t wake up, dressed and went downstairs. They had an idea of what the commotion was about. The night before, around nine in the evening, they had left their son and daughter with Viola’s sister, Estelle, who had been visiting for Easter weekend, and they took a stroll with their umbrellas to look at the Great Miami River. The water was several feet below the levees, but it was obvious that it was rising. Still, they didn’t think it would actually overtop the levee. Just a week earlier, the Great Miami River through Dayton had been 2.7 feet deep, and the levees were designed to hold the river at 25 feet. The highest the water had ever been was 21.8 feet.

  At the worst, figured Charles, if the river overflowed the levee, it couldn’t possibly go farther than the end of their street, Rung Street, based on what had happened during the last serious flood in 1898.

  Still, the concerned couple decided that Charles could check out the Miami again and see what they were dealing with. He put on his overcoat, grabbed his umbrella, and headed out the door, leaving 33 Rung Street to walk several blocks to the river. The rain was unforgiving, and the sky still dark, but Charles didn’t feel alone. The streets were full of people coming and going, doing the exact same thing.

  Charles surveyed the river. It was as bad as everyone feared. In fact, the river, which was perilously close to coming over the 25-foot levee, would rise to 29 feet. Charles didn’t know that, of course, but he was frightened.

  Adams hurried back to his house.

  Zanesville, Ohio, 4:55 A.M.

  The electric power plant stopped working, and the bleary-eyed residents, many of them awake and watching the water outside their homes, were now in the darkness and facing an unseen enemy. Judging from the screams that could be heard throughout the city, some residents were either already in trouble or very, very edgy.

  Columbus, Ohio, 5 A.M.

  The police stations were now being overwhelmed with telephone calls, requesting help from people whose homes were flooded. Some police stations began calling the fire department, hoping for a little backup.

  Dayton, Ohio, 5:30 A.M.

  Dayton’s city engineer, Gaylord Cummin, reported that the water was at the top of the levees. It was, he calculated, flowing at 100,000 feet per second. He predicted that the water would be overflowing the levees and appearing in the streets within half an hour.

  In the northern part of Dayton, the levees began overflowing right about the time Charles Adams returned to his house. He didn’t have to convince Viola that they needed to prepare for a flood. Charles’s father, who lived nearby, had already come over to help his son’s family. Charles’s father was named John, and so we don’t have images of forefathers in a flood, John Adams shall henceforth be referred to as Grandpa Adams.

  Everyone went to work, prepping the house for the flood and developing a plan to leave before it came.

  March 25, Dawn, Peru, Indiana

  Mayor John Kreutzer, hearing that the Wabash River was rising about a foot an hour and hammering south Peru, asked for bleary-eyed volunteers to brave the rain and help citizens near the river move their belongings or leave for safer ground.

  His request for help was heeded. Rescuers were out in force, as they were in communities throughout the Midwest. Sam Bundy had been out in his boat for several hours now, and Glenn Kessler, the man visiting his cousin in Peru who had heard the circus animals all night at the courthouse, was soon another. Indeed, the flood was doing plenty of damage—the bridge near Broadway Street was just about to collapse—and there were plenty of people who needed saving.

  Edward Murray and his wife and kids were among them. Edward was awakened by the incessant barking of the family dog. Their pet—whose name and breed is unknown—saw the approaching water and recognized that something was very wrong (the water flooding into the first floor probably clued the animal in). The dog barked repeatedly, hurling his small body against his master’s closed bedroom door until it opened. Edward and his wife Mary followed their dog to the windows and must have been flabbergasted and then full of fear. The house was surrounded by water.

  By now, their twelve-year-old daughter, Mabel, and Edward’s 77-year-old mother, Susanna, were also awake. Or if they weren’t, they were once Edward opened the window and began shouting for help.

  Their dog shouted, too, in his own way, barking furiously and placing his front paws onto the windowsill.

  The Murrays were fortunate compared to many of the neighbors. It wasn’t long before Edward, Mary, Mabel, Susanna, and their dog were scrambling into a rescue boat—possibly helped by Bundy, but there were many rescuers out and about—and being ferried to dry land.

  Peru’s town officials had already mobilized because the Murrays were quickly shuttled into a waiting motorcar. But it was then that the Murrays heard the tragic sound that made everyone sick. Just before the Murrays had climbed into the car, their dog had run underneath the belly of the vehicle, which was almost certainly an inexpensive car, possibly an Orient Buckboard, which had floorboards that were so flexible, they sometimes sagged and even occasionally, if there was enough weight in the car, were split into two. The Murrays, after clambering into the car and onto its floorboards, heard an agonized yelp from their dog.

  Their beloved dog, their savior, who had scampered underneath the car, had just been crushed under their collective weight.

  Water was entering the cages at the Wallace-Hagenbeck Circus. In the hay barn, where the deer, llama, kangaroo, camels, and other similar docile creatures lived, the river had already made its presence known, and some of the animals that had been roaring and crying out from their cages had already been drowned. The animals that were still alive were picked up by the circus workers and carried to a higher story in the barn, where there were dry cages.

  In the room that housed the cats—including lions, a Bengal tiger, panthers, leopards, and a jaguar—the water was a few inches high but hardly life-threatening.

  The elephants, on lower ground, would have begged to differ. Elephant trainer John Worden and his three assistants, John Clark, Jack Morris, and Charles Williams, waded in waist-deep water that was flooding the elephant barn, which was a foot below ground level. They apparently closed the door behind them, which was a mistake.

  The elephants had been trumpeting furiously, but once they saw their trainers, they stopped. They stood obediently as the men held their breath, dropped under the muddy water, and removed the heavy chains that held the elephants’ feet to the floor.

  Worden called
the elephants to fall in line, just as they had done so many times in rehearsal and for cheering crowds. They marched forward until they reached the barn door.

  Then one of Worden’s assistants let the big barn door swing open, which released a rush of water into the barn. Frightened, the elephants reversed course, stampeding back away from the entrance, only there was nowhere to go that was safe.

  Worden started screaming their names, shouting for Tess, Nellie, Nancy, Bedelia, Josky, Jennie, Diamond, Satan, Baby, Trilby, Pinto, and Jumbo—twelve animals in all—to fall back in line, jabbing them with hooks, trying to steer them outside of the barn. Three times, the elephants did what they were told, only to draw back at the chilly wind. The barn was terrifying, but the elephants sensed that outside was no better.

  Worden and his assistants were now in freezing water up to their shoulders. Worden suddenly felt his right leg cramp up, and he started to fall until he saw Nellie put forth her right foreleg, allowing him to climb onto it. He did, and Nellie, with her trunk, lifted Worden up to her back. To Worden’s shock, he was able to lead Nellie outside of the barn and toward the two-story brick house where the circus trainers lived. The other trainers, giving up on the elephants, swam after Nellie and Worden.

  The trainers all reached the house, on higher ground than the barn but nevertheless filling up with water on the first floor.

  Nellie couldn’t come inside the house, obviously. She remained outside and retreated back to the barn.

  About an hour later, eight of the elephants, led by Nellie, returned to the house and decided that, well, maybe she could come inside. She and the other elephants beat against the doors and smashed apart the windows, but the house was too strong for them—to the utter relief of the seventy-five circus employees inside.

  Worden and his trainers handed the elephants a bale of hay that they were going to use for some bedding for the employees, but once they were out of food, the water was so deep on the first floor that they realized they had no choice but to run upstairs with the rest of the circus crowd. From the second-story window, Worden and his crew watched anxiously and helplessly as the elephants splashed around the house in the rain and increasingly deeper water and listened helplessly as they trumpeted for help. After a while, they noticed that there weren’t eight elephants but seven, and then six. It was becoming increasingly clear that some of the elephants had drowned. Worden couldn’t help but be pleased to see that Nellie, who he would always feel had saved his life, still wearily trudging through the water. He fervently hoped that somehow she would make it.