^ ^ i, ^ 7 n \l Oniuergitp of Bottl) Carolina Cndotoet! bp %^t SDiaUctic anU Pfiilant^roplc ^ocietie^ 6 4-3n UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 00040627161 FOR USE ONLY IN THE NORTH CAROLINA COLLECTION THiS ITEM MAY NOT BE COPIED ON THE SELF-SERVICE COPIER Roi'th 14] . '^-c^yyy:-:" <1 ^^^■^^^^^ ?#^??\ ^'"^^^C ^^^:^^- ^, - "^'ik^ •USiyi^/^J^LE-X? • E>>^- "^AT-. -^V.:&::E^J^iy• CrHA^RLOTTiiiC- THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD July 14, 15, 16, 1916 PRICE $1.00 Published by W, M. BELL Charlotte, N. C. SUBJECT MATTER The Storm Which Caused The Flood. Pages 7-8. Storm and Flood Reviewed From Charlotte. Pages 9-14. Asheville, Biltmore and Nearby Points. Pages 15-36. Morganton, Marion and Vicinity. Pages 37-46. Bat Cave and Chimney Rock Catastrophe. Pages 47-49. The Yadkin River, Flood and Destruction. Pages 51-53. The Flood at North Wilkesboro. Pages 55-56. In Wilkes County After the Flood. Pages 57-59. Land Slide That Devastated Entire Valley. Pages 61-62. Staring Death for Twenty-four Hours. Saved. Pages 63-65. The Breaking of Lake Toxaway. Pages 67-68. Of the great rainfall, landslides, loss of life and property damage in the North Carolina mountains, and the over- whelming floods which swept down the river valleys, July 14, 15, and 16, 1916, the "half has never been told," neither is it told in the following pages but a review of this great catastrophe and graphic stories of its principal episodes are herewith presented. THE PUBLISHER. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill http://www.archive.org/details/northcarolinafloOObell BRIDGES WASHED AWAY ON THE CATAWBA, NEAR CHARLOTTE. Abutments left of Southern railway bridge on Gaston county side. (2) Mecklenburg side of same bridge. (3) What remains of Seaboard and P. & N. bridges at Mount Holly. Showing fields of corn and all trees and banks swept away. (Photo by Cushman, Charlotte.) The Storm Which Caused The Flood ^y O. O. JITTO U. S. Weather Bureau, Charlotte The variety of disturbance whicn caused the excessively heavy rains in western North Carolina July 14-16, 1916 is called by meteorologists, "Tro- pical Hurricane" or more often, "West India Hurricane". This is very des- tructive kind of whirling storm resem- bling much the well-developed low pressure area over the land, but being much more pronounced in its charac- teristics. Storms of this type usually form to the south and southwest of a sort or semi-permanent area of high pressure which occupies the middle Atlantic Ocean during the summer and early fall months. As the season advances, they develop farther and farther to the westward along the southern limit of the northeast trade winds, and us- ually between 8 and 20 degrees north latitude. The near approach of a hurricane is indicated ~-y the appearance of thin, upper clouds, and a long rolling swell of the ocean. After a slight rise, the pressure begins to decrease staedily, the clouds thicken, then the pressure decreases more rapidly, and squally wind and rain begin, both increasing in intensity as the centre of the storm appraches a given place. With the pressure decreasing rapidly, high winds and heavy rains continue, often for many hours. Then the sky sud- denly clears, and the sun comes out, and the unsupecting think that the VII storm is wholly past. But not so. The sky soon becomes darkened with dense clouds, the wind shifts and rises to hurricane velocity, and torrential rains again begin. These conditions prevail for several hours more, but with rapi- dly rising barometer. At the close oi the storm the cirrus or upper clouds are again visible, and nothing skyward indicates that a severe storm has pass- ed. This kind of storm ranges in size from 500 to 1000 miles in diameter, and the storm progresses from one place to another at about 15 to 18 miles per hour. On passing from the ocean to an ex- tensive land area, the hurricane us- ually retains its destructive character- istics until the storm is wholly inland, where it generally decreases in strength and often entirely disintegrates. When the center of one of these storms moves inland and northeastward over the Atlantic coast states, places on the coast will experience destructive wii^- velocities, extremely high tides, and excessively heavy rainfall. Should the storm move to the Atlantic coast but with its center over the ocean, places on the coast will experiment westerly winds, and the tides will not be so high nor the rainfall so heavy, as in the former condition. The first wireless report of the storm of July, 1916, as received by the Central office of the Weather Bureau at Washington, indicated its center to 8 THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD. be nearly 400 miles almost due soutti- east of Jacksonville, Florida, on ttie morning of the 12th. The following morning it had moved about 200 miles in the direction of Charleston, IS. (J. and at 8 a. m. on the 14th, its center moved inland almost directly over the city of Charleston. Thence it moved slowly northwestward till it approacb- ed the mountains, where it re-curved to the northeastward, passing over tbe western portion of North Carolina and Virginia, decreasing all the while in intensity. This particular direction of motion, produced ideal conditions for the heavy rains which it caused. Such a motion resulted in northeasterly winds whicn shifted to the east with the near ap- proach of the storm and to the soutn- east after its center had passed. These winds, coming from off the Ocean, were consequently laden with vapor, which condensed on approaching the elevation of the interior, with the re- sultant torrential downpour. The rainfall at Charlotte during the passage of the storm totalled 5.15 inches, with a maximum 24-hours tan of 5.04 inches, this being a new record for 24-bours rainfall in a period of 38 years. Storm And Flood Reviewed From Charlotte ^y W. M. BELL More than twenty-five years ago Bill Smith, an old man, lived in Yadkin county, near Elkin. When he worked he was a well-digger, but most of his time was spent around town. He delighted in telling of great things that happened in the country "before the war" and, dur- ing the war, especially of how the country was destroyed by Stoneman and his army on its march through that section. The old people living there said lots of Bill's yarns were true, only "he did not tell it bad enough." The children, who listened to his stories, could hardly believe all he said and named him "Lying Bill" Smith. That was almost thirty years ago. Thirty years from today the chil- dren, not yet born, will listen to the old men — one of them may be named Bill Smith — telling about the great hurricane and flood that swept the mountain country of North Car- olina July 14, 15, and 16, 1916, and the description of this great flood will sound so vmreasonable that they, too, will be called "Lying Bill" Smith. IT CANNOT BE DESCRIBED. It happened suddenly. The wind blew; the clouds divided and poured torrents; earth and boulders that had been resting on the mountain sides for hundreds of years went tearing down, carrying death and de- struction in their wake; branches. creeks and rivers became roaring torrents sweeping down the valleys taking everything before them. It was all over in three days but in that time a damage of millions of dollars had been done to farms, rail- roads and industrial plants and a hundred and more men, women and children had been sent to eternity, some of them swept away and never being heard from. Railroads and factories were rebuilt but many of the farms, ruined and washed, will remain as marks of the great flood for time to come. THE BEGINNING OF THE STORM. Early in the week of July 10th, the Government Weather Bureau at Washington, issued warnings stating a storm was forming along the South Atlantic coast. It was expected that Charleston, S. C, would be the center of the catastrophe. It did strike Charleston but only small dam- age was done to that city and sec- tion. Instead of keeping to the coast the storm turned inland and Piedmont and Western North Caro- lina was in its direct path. AT CHARLOTTE. Thursday morning, July 13th, rain began falling in Charlotte and a brisk wind was blowing. It continued to rain throughout the day and night. Friday it was raining hard, the wind was rising, and by nightfall a deluge IX 10 THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD. of water was falling. The wind was ripping around the corners of build- ings and in the open, at a velocity of more than 50 miles an hour. Dur- ing the night awnings were torn from buildings, signs ripped from their holdings, plate glass store fronts smashed, roofs blown away, homes and stores flooded with wa- ter, and beautiful trees uprooted and those that remained standing shorn of their limbs in many instances and strewn along the streets for blocks. Next morning the city looked like a "cyclone had struck it." This was Saturday morning, July 15. But Charlotte and vicinity had been let down easy. Soon reports began to be received that the mountain sections were in the grip of such a storm as had never before been ex- perienced. Enquiry at the weather buraeu brought the information that the storm was central over Ashe- ville. Telegraph and telephone con- nections with all sections west of Hickory were down and only a guess of what was going on farther in the mountains was left for those who had been interesting themselves with the path of the storm. A dispatch from Hickory at 7 p. m., stated that the rainfall there had been more than ten inches in the ten hours and that rain v/as still falling in torrents. Soon afterwards the wires went down. THE CATAWBA WAS THEN WATCHED. Saturday night at midnight when the Southern trains arrived, running late, under "caution" orders, train- men reported the Catawba river rising several feet an hour. One engineer stated that when he cross- ed Broad river, near Spartanburg, It was a regular ocean, and that when he reached the Catawba it was a raging torrent. He shook his head when enquiry was made as to the rainfall up the river. He was an old trainman and, though he did not say so, he had in mind no doubt, many troubles that had already be- fallen the people farther up the river. Later developments proved that this old trainman's thoughts were right. At that very moment a de- vastating flood was tearing down the mountains sweeping everything be- fore it and men were risking their lives in the rescue of any unfortun- ates caught in the quick rise of the waters. Sunday morning the Cataw- ba was running well over twenty feet high and still rising. At the Seaboard Air Line and the Piedmont & Northern railway bridges, near Mount Holly, thousands of people had gathered to watch the flow of the river and its rapid rise. That thousands of dollars worth of property had been destroyed up the river was evident from the quantities of all kinds of drift pass- ing. Heavy timber, parts of bridges, parts of houses, bales of cotton, logs, big trees torn from their roots, hay stacks, wheat shocks and various other kinds of drifts floated by. Live stock, chickens and rabbits were seen to go by on all kinds of rafts. In the afternoon the big iron bridge of the Seaboard was forced out and down with a crash, hundreds of people standing on its approaches fleeing for safety. Later the new, modern, steel bridge of the Piedmont & Northern, standing flve feet higher than the Seaboard, was forced to follow and went down, slipping easily from its piers and with it > CO I CO 9 00*5 — -i -a I ° uj y Q ^ o -J < z . «d a! THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD. 11 six heavy loaded cars of coal that had been run out on it for the pur- pose of holding it down. It was dark when this bridge went down and the heavy power lines and trolly wire carried with it, heavily charged with electric current, lighted the heavens as they came in contact with the water. It was a show not soon to be forgotten by the onlook- ers. Three handsome highway bridges, one a beautiful structure recently completed at a cost of $100,000 to the county of Mecklen- burg, had earlier in the day been swept away. AT THE SOUTHERN RAILWAY BRIDGE. MEN WHO WENT DOWN WITH THE BRIDGE. The heavy iron bridge of the Southern Railway at Mayesworth, three miles above Mount Holly, at 5:30 Sunday afternoon was the scene of the greatest catastrophe recorded. When this bridge was swept away it carried down eighteen or more employes of the railroad who had been doing heroic work for hours trying to save the structure. The crash came without warning and the men were thrown into the rushing waters, six of them never to be seen again. That some of the men had managed to catch to trees farther down was known from the cries for help that could be heard above the roar of the water. It was then dark and to make any effort at rescue would have been simple suicide. Monday morning the river had risen more than fifteen feet and the trees that had held the unfortun- ate men were either submerged or carried away. The men known to have gone down with the Southren Railway bridge included Resident Engineer Joseph Killian, H. P. Griffiin, C. S. Barbee, R. O. Thompson, W. L. For- tune, G. C. Kale, J. N. Gordon, C. W. Kluttz, and H O. Gulley, all white, and ten or more negroes, all em- ployees of the Southern. The white men with the exception of Gordon, Barbee and Kluttz were rescued the following day and a number of the negroes. Gordon's body was taken from the river two days later and Barbee's was found on Friday. The body of Kluttz was never found. Of the heroic rescues of the men marooned in trees along the river graphic stories might be written. Early Monday morning B. M. En- glish and H. T. Vernor put out with a boat for Thompson who was hang- ing to a tree near the middle of the rushing stream. They reached him and had succeeded in getting him in the boat when, in his delirium, he capsized the boat and threw all three men into the water again. Ver- nor saved himself and both the other men by drawing tnem to a tree farther down. They were marooned for more than nine hours before be- ing rescued by two negroes Alphonso Ross and Peter Stowe, two negro men, reared on the river and familiar with manning a boat volunteered to make the effort at rescue. A boat was hastily made and the men went out. Trip after trip was made until they had brought to the shore Vernor, English, Thomp- son, Killian, Gurley and Kale. For this act of bravery a purse of $550.00 was presented to them a few days later. The purse was col- 12 THEi NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD. lected through the Charlotte Observ- er and contributed to by both white and colored citizens. MEN NEARLY DELIRIOUS. AT THE CATAWBA'S HEAD. Messrs. Killian, Thompson, Gurley and Kale had been marooned for twenty hours struggling every mo- ment against a relentless current for thier lives. They were dazed and stupifiefid. Their throats were sore, their eyes swollen and their heads were roaring the merciless music of the Catawba's cantations. Their shoes were gone and they were shivering from exposure. They were wild with excitement. Their eyes carried the faraway look of those "who had gone down in the deep." They were a vision that was painful to behold. When they were brought to the bank tears filled many an eye and the speech of the men was inter- rupted by the swelling of emotions within their own breasts. The men were brought to Charlotte, given medical attention, and sent to their homes and families. ON DOWN THE RIVER. Farther down the Catawba con- tinued its destruction. At Fort Mill, S. C, the 510 foot steel bridge of the Southern was swept away cutting off rail connections over both main lines leading to the South from Char- lotte. The Mountain Island cotton mills at Mount Holly was swept away and with it a number of homes of operatives and 800 bales of cotton. Nothing could stand be- fore the onrushing waters. The river was at that time — it had reach- ed its crest — 51 feet, some said, above its ordinary level. The Catawba rises in the mountains to the right of Asheville. It flows down one of the most picturesque valleys of the western part of North Carolina; it is fed by numbers of smaller rivers and creeks. All along its banks, in McDowell, Burke, Ca- tawba , Caldwell, Iredell, Lincoln,,, Mecklenburg and Gaston counties, the finest farms of the state are to be seen and they are in the highest state of cultivation. Many of these farms, especially in McDowell, Burke, Caldwell and Catawba counties have been reduced to sand and gravel. Dotted along the river are great hydro-electric power plants and great concrete dams. None of the power plants were washed away but all were buried in water and sand and damaged thousands of dollars. Breaks occurred in a number of the dams that will cost thousands of dollars to repair. Located along the river were beautiful, modern cotton mills, the pride of the section and representing investments of thou- sands. A majority of the mills stood the flood pressure but were overflowed and greatly damaged. One mill near Statesville was completely wrecked and another one on the op- posit bank, owned by the same or- poration, was damaged 30 to 50 per cejQt. All of them had warehouses of cotton washed away, representing large amounts of money. All these losses were complete as no insurance covered such losses. DAMAGE TO RAILROADS IN THE MOUNTAINS. The Southern Railway from Statesville west towards Asheville was the heaviest loser when railroads are considered. An article appear- SOUTHERN RAILWAY BRIDGE, CATAWBA RIVER, NEAR ROCK HILL. This bridge (510 feet) was the last Bridge to go out breaking the main line of the Southern from Charlotte to Jacksonville. Upper view shows river at flood tide; lower, wreckage after river receded. (Cut courtesy Rock Hill Magazine.) THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD. 13 ing in this book by Mr. F. C. Abbott, of Charlotte, gives some idea of the damage to this one line and the loss to the corporation. Not a rail- road bridge was left standing where the road crossed the river and in many places slides and washouts oc- curred miles away from any stream, so great was the rainfall in that section. Trains caught between bridges and slides were forced to stand for days before lines were reconstructed. Passengers marooned on these trains told vivid stories of their experiences cut off from the world and not knowing the conditions on down the mountain. In some in- stances only limited food was to be had and no lights or water. One passenger stated that he never got so much in his life for a dollar-and- a-half. He was in a Southren Rail- way train from Saturday morning until the following Wednesday, living in a Pullman that was lighted at night by a tallow candle. The Carolina and North Western Railway was also a heavy looser. This road reaches from Chester, S. C, to Lenoir, with an extension of 30 miles from Lenoir to Edgement for lumbering. The greatest damage to this line of road was from New- ton to Lenoir and to Edgemont. Bridges were swept away and track and roadbed damaged so that for days traffic was suspended. Be- yond Lenoir towards Edgemont al- most the entire road was carried away. This section was in the center of the cloudburst and rushing wa- ters carried railroads, saw mills, farms, farm houses, and everything before them. The sweep of the wa- ter in this section at one place is said to have completely washed away a cemetery that had been in use for more than fifty years, leaving not a mark of a grave. Many lives were reported lost and untold dam- age was done to property. In Alexander county, near Taylors- ville, certain sections came in for great property damage. Flood wa- ters of the streams caused the wash- ing away of the cotton mills at Liledown and Alspaugh and every bridge and corn mill along the streams. Away from the streams cliffs and boulders broke away from their holdings and went crashing down the mountains carrying death and destruction. Over in Wilkes county and farther up in Watauga and Ashe counties similar conditions obtain. SEABOARD AIR LINE LOSES HEAVILY. The Seaboard Air Line railway from Charlotte west to Rutherfordton was loser principally from bridges being swept away. Its heavy iron bridge, near the P. & N. bridge at Mount Holly was one of the first to go out on the Catawba near Char- lotte. Damage from washed road- bed and culverts was reported all along and for several weeks after- wards traffic was delayed. Its line east from Charlotte to Monroe was never closed but farther south to- wards Columbia and Savannah traffic was temporarily suspended on account of the high water and dan- gers from moving trains over weaken- ed bridges. The Southern Railway was also heavily damaged on its lines from Asheville to Spartanburg, down the Saluda mountains and its lines along the Yadkin river from Wilkesboro to Donnaha a distance of fifty miles 01 more. Accounts of the great dam- age and the trail of the flood in 14 THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD. these sections are told of in special articles from eyewitnesses, published in other scetions of this book. C. C. & O. RAILWAY ALSO HEAVY LOSER. The Carolina, Clinchfield & Ohio Railway stretching from Dante, Va., to Spartanburg, S. C, was also a heavy loser in the mountains. This road starts across the mountains at Marion, N. C, and winds around cliffs and mountains and through tunnels for miles until the Tennes- see line is reached. Its greatest damage was due to mountaxl slides and cloudbursts of water sweeping down carrying rails, ties and roadbed with it to the chasms below. The monetary damage to this road could not be estimated. It was closed for several weeks afterwards and it will be months and perhaps a year be- fore the road is back in as fine shape as before the flood. It was the finest built road in the North Caro- lina mountains, with heavy rails and rock ballast. ON THE WESTERN SLOPE OF THE MOUNTAINS. The great rain fall being central over the Asheville scetion it carried the flow of the water west as well as east. New River, Tennessee, Toe and other rivers and streams on the western slope while not as high as those on the eastern side did great damage and overflowed. All along the valleys thousands of dollars in dam- age was done to farms, bridges and industrial plants. At Knoxville the river ran well up into certain busi- ness and residential sections causing no loss of life but great property damage. New river that which borders Northwestern North Carolina and southwest Virginia was a raging torrent. It made a record for flood stage, sweeping what is known in the mountains of North Carolina as "New River Valley" clean of every- thing in its path. At Fries, Va., the half million dollar cotton mills — The Washington Mills — was greatly damaged and the great concrete dam swept away. This property is largely owned by North Carolina capital. At East Radford, Va., thousands of dol- lars was lost by damage to property along the river. The Norfolk & Western Railway was the heaviest individual loser along this river. This railroad corporation has been building short lines of road back into the mountains of North Carolina and Virginia for several years and these roads were the lines most damaged in the New River Valley. THE LOSS THE SECTION OVER. No estimate within a million dol- lars can be reached as to the loss to property sustained from this great flood, not considering the loss of life and the loss from interrupted business. Railroads and bridges are already largely rebuilt but the farms will remain barren in many sections forever. No soil is left, only barren rocks. This is true especially in the mountain sections. The natives ordinarily of scant means, many of them barely able to eke out an ex- istence will be forced to emigrate to new fields. It is true the Governor was prompt to issue an appeal for these stricken people and the citizens quick to respond but the funds, no matter how great, will never be able to restore to them the lost lands on which they made a living. SCENE AT ASHEVILLE. (1) Southern railway yards, X locates Hans-Reece Tannery under water. Great property loss here. (2) Southern railway passenger depot under water. X shows where two men were drowned trying to get food to marooned guests in Glen Rock Hotel. Asheville, Biltmore and Nearby Points By HELEN C BLANKENSHIP First Rumors of the Storm. On Wednesday, July 12, 1916, the following little news item was sent out by the Associated Press and appeared in the daily papers of the country: Weather Disturbance. "Washington, July 12. — Weath- er bureau reports today give some indications of a disturbance in the extreme eastern Carribean Sea." The item appeared in the Asheville papers in an inconspicuous position, read by few, remarked, probably, by none. Could it have been given its true news value in relation to the proportions it was to assume within the next few days, it would have been printed in scare head type over the biggest part of the front page, would have been on every lip. For this was the cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, which was to deluge Western North Carolina with such horror, ruin and grief as the peace- ful and beautiful region had never in all its history known before. Thursday the "follow-up" item said, "The Carribean sea disturbance was aparently central this morning near the south of Porto Rica, acording to weather bureau reports. Its intensity was still unknown." Friday afternoon the coast of South Carolina and Georgia was swept by a hurricane, government storm warnings were ordered up, and the hurricane was felt in central South Carolina, the wind increasing in violence. At Asheville, the French Broad had been high all week. All week it had been raining. Curious sight-seers had thronged the concrete bridge to see the river lapping the front steps of litle houses ordinarily several hun- dred feet from the water's edge. But nothing had been thought of it. The Asheville rivers had never in the history of the oldest inhabitant done any damage, caused any apprehen- sion. When Saturday afternoon the Asheville evening paper carried the story that the Swannnanoa was at flood tide, and that great timbers and piles of lumber were sweeping down the stream and threatening the house of J. C. Lipe, near the river, the account was read with passing interest only. "It is reported that there has been a cloud burst on the head waters of the Swan- nanoa," said the paper. A cloud burst indeed! It was in this term that the rumor of what was happen- ing in the "Big Mountains" first reached Asheville. The tropical hurricane, had travel- ed north and west from South Car- olina. Borne along by a wind of irrestitable power, the vast mass of clouds, heavily-laden with water, had crashed against the peaks of the Blue Ridge, and had poured upon XV 16 THE NORTH CAROLINA FliOOD. thier slopes deluge enormous beyond the power of man to imagine or describe. At Alta Pass, in Mitchell county, where the center of the storm burst, and where the rainfall was heaviest, 22.22 inches of rain fell in the 24 hours prceeding 2 p. m. on the fate- ful Sunday. At Black Mountain, as said W. F. Randolph, of Asheville, who was at his summer home, Orchard Camp, the rain came down in sheets, in streams, in tubfuls. At Old Fort, at the foot of the Blue Ridge, as the Old Fort Sentinel stated, rivulets became streams, streams became creeks, creeks be- came rivers, and graphic phrase, "rivers became frightful." Capt. John T. Patrick stated that at Bat Cave and Chimney Rock, the noise of the rain beating on the roofs of the houses was only compar- able to thunder. All this rainfall, be it remembered, fell upon ground already soaked and saturated down to bedrock, upon streams already bank-full, due to the storm of the preceeding week. No wonder then, that rivers were dou- bled, tripled in volume, with result- ing destruction widespread and ter- rible. Dawn of the Fateful Sunday. Asheville was on the outskirts of the path of the storm, and Sunday night fell with the people ignorant of the calamity that was aproaching. Laborers took the street car to their suburban homes, parties motored out to their country places, the trains pulled out of the depot as usual, car- rying their human passengers bound for points far and near. Saturday night, rainy and windy, darkness fell, and people went to bed and to sleep — to sleep, many of them, till late' hours Sunday morning. The blowing of the whistle of the cotton mill, and the ringing of the riot call on the fire bell, awakened them to the strangest Sunday Ashe- ville had ever known. To those who lived beyond the sound of these alarms, the first inkling of the situ- ation came when they found they had no electric lights, and no gas, and that there were no street cars run- ning. People began to question their neighbors, to telephone, to stop pass- ersby, and soon the news was spread- ing like wildfire all over the city and suburbs, and to nearby villages. The wildest rumors were current, though most of them were no worse than the truth. "Asheville and Biltmore are flood- ed!" the cry went around. VThe wa- ter is up to the ceiling in the depot. It is six feet deep in Dr. Elias' house in Biltmore. It is in All Soul's church — it is in the Vanderbilt hos- pital — the beds are floating — the pa- tients are drowning! The tannery is washed away — bridges are gone. Cap- tain Lipe and some of the nurses are drowned at Biltmore. Other peo- ple are up in trees, surrounded by water, and they cannot get them out of the river. The Swannanoa is a mile wide! Box cars are floating down the French Broad. The lakes at Hendersonville have broken, and hotels from Hendersonville have floated down the French Broad. Street cars are under water in front of the depot." As the news spread, the streets leading to Biltmore and the depot, to the concrete bridge and Riverside Park, became thronged with a steady procession of men, women and chil- dren on foot, of autos, and carriages, O) — E. < -o ? s :? DC o UJ j: H < "i) ^ a. _l oc LU O D z -) D ,— ^ ^— UJ ** cc u o — ^ 5 -I (0 TS > I nl *' > O c o II THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD. 17 and of horseback riders and wagons from the country, and the work of life-saving which was going on at Eiltmore and in the river district of Asheville was watched by a vast crowd. Rescue Work at Biltmore. At 4 o'clock Sunday morning flood torrents had burst without warning into the village of Biltmore; the rising waves drove the people to the hills for miles along the Swan- nanoa and French Broad, and houses were tossed in the waves like egg shells and lashed in pieces against the concrete bridges. The principal interest centered from an early hour in the morning until late afternoon about the Lipe house of Biltmore where Captain Lipe, and the nurses, the Misses Walker and Miss Foister, lost their lives. P. A. Miller, mayor of South Bilt- more, was an eye-witness to the en- tire scene. Here is his story: "My little boy woke me about 6 o'clock," he said, 'saying that the river was up and Captain Lipe's fam- ily in danger. I went right out there. Captain Lipe was up in a tree near his house, holding his youngest daughter. Miss Katherine Lipe, above him. Miss Charlotte Walker, and Miss Foister, nurses from Biltmore hos- pital, and Miss Louise Walker, Miss Walker's sister, were standing at the foot of the tree in water up to their necks. They were holding to the tree and at times tried to climb up into it. "Everyone of the Lipe family, and the nurses, had once gotten out of the house at 5 o'clock in the morning in water up to their ankles. They did not believe the water would rise any more and went back after their be- longings. The water caught them so suddenly that they could not get away. "One by one the victims gave way, let go their hold and sank immediate- ly. A young man was swimming to the last of the young ladies with a rope when she turned loose and sank. Captain Lipe was the last to turn loose. He had been in that cold water for six or eight hours, with the river lashing his back and beat- ing him against the tree, when he gave way and fell into the water. He was seen to go ten feet, to sink, come up, go under again and was never seen any more. "He left his daughter. Miss Kath- leen still clinging to the tree. She stayed like that some two hours when a young man swam to her and went up the tree. Another young man swam out and took her a rope. They tied her up in the tree, well above the water, so that her weight was suspended by the rope under her arms, before they got a boat to her. We had phoned to Skyland in the morning for a boat, and young Frady brought it to Biltmore on a wagon. Raymond Plemmons, Mrs. Vander- bilt's chauffeur, and Will Donnahoe who works at the Vanderbilt house as footman, got the boat to her — a flat botomed home-made boat, and rowel to shallow water. Dr. Elias met her at the water, and we carried her a quarter of a mile through the woods to Dr. Smather's machine, which took her to the hospital. She kept asking us not to hurt her left arm, and said that she was beat to pieces against that tree. It was about 2 o'clock when she was rescued. "All this time, Mrs. MilhoUand, Captain Lipe's oldest daughter was in 18 THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD. the water near the ball park pavil- ion, holding to a tree. Another man was there, too, whose name I do not know. Mrs. Milholland had been out of her house and returned. She phon- ed Mr. Fiezer, the livery man to come get his horses out of the stable and she got caught by the water herself. My brother, A. A. Miller, took the first rope to them. He swam from the office building, was wash- ed under, came up again, but lost the rope. Walter Curry took the second rope. He stopped at the tree above, and threw it to them. He went under, but they got the rope. He caught the tree and stayed there for two hours, then swam out at the lodge gate. '"The man lashed Mrs. Milholland to the three. In a few minutes about two wagon loads of lumber, solidly packed, came down the river right against their backs, and settled against the tree. The man untied the rope, climbed upon the lumber, rest- ed, then pulled Mrs. Milholland up, she rested, and then he lashed her to the tree two feet above the water. They were in the tree four hours. They got them out about 3 or 4 o'clock. The water began to fall at 12. "In the meantime some Biltmore carpenters, Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Hall, and Mr. Creasman, had made a boat. We used this to rescue families along Brook street, among them the family of Ben Taylor, also Mr. Weldon, the night operator at the Biltmore depot, who had been in water up to his neck since 3 o'clock." But for the bravery of C. P. Ryman and R. Ball, Miss Kathleen Lipe would have undoubtedly perished in the flood. Like true heroes, these men after risking their lives, said nothing about it. Sunday noon, while Miss Lipe was still clinging in the tree from which four had been swept to a watery grave, Ryman and Ball, unknown to r.nyone, were constructing a small raft. When finishel, they pushel it into the water and started for the tree, but when the frail raft was within a few feet of the tree it struck a lamp post and the men were thrown into the water. Mr. Ry- man succeeded in swimming to the tree to which the girl was holding, but Mr. Ball was carried on down stream and finally succeeded in get- ting a foothold on the lodge gate where he remained for five hours. Mr. Ryman, on reaching the tree lifted Miss Lipe as far out of the water as possible, then tied a small rope about her waist and fastenel her securely to the tree. He then climbed the tree, and reaching down released the rope about the girl and attempted to pull her up into the tree, but he was too exhausted af- ter his battle with the swift water and was compelled again to tie the Kirl to the trunk of the tree. He then climbed into the tree and for five hours stood ready to plunge into the water should the girl be torn from the tree. Ryman was taken from the tree by the men who later reached him pnd Miss Lipe with a boat. Will Cooper, also of Biltmore, tied a rope about his body and swam, battling the swift current, all the way from Biltmore office to the tree where Miss Lipe was clinging, which was near the estate lodge gate. Ryman and Ball put off in* a boat they had constructed in an attempt to reach the girl. When a short dis- > UJ I (0 < I- < 111 o Q QC m (0 z t (0 THE NORTH CAROONA FLOOD. 19 tance away, their craft was hurled against a lamp-post and mased. The pair swam to the tree harboring Miss Lipe and drew themselves into the branches. Cooper witnessed the disaster, put a rope around himself with a knot he could easily loose and reached the tree in a record breaking swim. Once there, he helped Miss Lipe fur- ther into the branches, bound her fast to the trunk and tossed the end of the line to Ryman. Almost exhausted, he dropped back into the flood and was carried swiftly toward the lodge wall. He attempted to reach the building but the cur- rent was too much for him. Fifty feet below he caught hold of some bushes and hung fast. The lodge keeper, Franks, seeing his plight, tied several sheets togeth- er and let the improvised life line drift down as far as possible. When Cooper got his wind, he pulled him- self along by the bushes to it and was dragged to safety. It it had not been for his ready wit and courage in the face of terri- fic danger, it is probable that Miss Lipe never could have hung on until a boat rescued her. A Lame Girl Saved — Story of Miss Lipe. There was nobody along the entire waterfront better placed to view the enormous destruction in life and property than Miss Nellie R. Lipe. The fact that she is lame and partial- ly unable to walk about freely added to the terror of her position on the day her father was swept to his death. Miss Lipe said: "Miss Foister and I were spending the night with Miss Walker in her Biltmore home. It must have been 3 o'clock in the morning when the telephone rang. Miss Walker answered it. The call was from my sister who said the water in the river was rising fast and would soon be over the bridge." Miss Nellie Lipe, Miss Foister and Miss Walker at once put on their clothes and went over to see if they could aid Captain Lipe. Miss Niellie Lipe was pushed over to her home in her wheel chair. When the party reached the house the water had risen six inches over the street level and was boiling through the cement rail of the bridge. Miss Lipe gave up her wheeled chair to her aged grandmother who otherwise could not have been moved and calmly watched her trundled to safety. Later several men success- fully battled with the current and dragged a baggage truck from the Biltmore station to the Lipe's door. On this the brave lame woman was taken back to Miss Walker's home. "After I was beyond the danger zone," continued Miss Lipe, "the re- mainder of the party again returned to urge Captain Lipe to abandon the house. That is all I know about the night.My sisters and father did not come back and I waited alone for daylight with the water swishing through the lower rooms. "In the morning, I could just see my father and the two nurses cling- ing to the third tree from the Bilt- more lodge gate. I couldn't see my sister, Kathleen, but I later learned she, too, was struggling in the tree. "My father did not strap my sister to the tree. She tied her sweater around the trunk and attempted to work her way up the branches as the water rose. I don't remember see- ing anybody actually let go, though 20 THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD. the two Miss Walkers disappeared lirst. Then my father and sister went. "Some men came for me in a boat about four in the afternoon. They made a landing on the stairs about half way up. They took me to Biltmore hospital where by sisters were brought later." It was R. J. Dowtin and Zeb Creas- man, of Biltmore, who finally rescued Mrs. Milholland from the tree in which she stayed from early morning until 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Nu- merous fruitless efforts had been made to save Mrs. Milholland, and she had been greatly aided by the efforts of young Mr. Thompson. Mrs. Milholland reached a tree about 60 yards southwest of the Biltmore administration office when overwhelmed by the flood. Before the water had risen very high Mr. Thompson carried a rope from a tree directly below the office to the one Mrs. Milholland was in. The water, however, rose so rapidly that he was unable to get her ashore or get back himself. But he succeeded in tying her to a tree. Later some lumber drifted against the tree and they cilmbed up on it. Mr. Dowtin and Mr. Creasman launched a raft from the office, a rope being tied to the raft, and they succeeded in getting the raft near enough to the tree so that Mr. Dow- tin could jump out on the lumber which had drifted against the tree. Mr. Dowtin then succeeded in bring- ing Mrs. Milholland onto the raft which was then pulled back to the Biltmore office by means of the rope. Mr. Dowtin stated that the stream was so swift that he did not think they would ever have succeed- ed in rescuing Mrs. Milholland ex- cept by means of the rope. George Digges, police desk ser- geant, with Adolph Marquart and Harry Noland, secured a canoe and put into the Swannanoa river at the broadest expanse of the swollen stream near the lower Victoria road at the end of the Biltmore avenue car line, with the purpose of res- cuing from the half-submerged Lipe home on the Biltmore side and of the family who might remain. The large crowds which from early dawn thronged the highway and banks of the stream in an eager effort to lend help to the flood victoms watched with deep interest the daring deed. From the bank well out into the flood- ed area of meadow land the canoe made good progress but on reach- ing the main strong current of the river capsized and it was not seen again. The three young men were thrown bodily against a tree and sought refuge in the limbs but again were hurled into the water, the tree giving way be- neath their weight. Spectators on the northern bank of the stream witnessing this felt that all hope was lost, but each of the three being good swimmers and, as Sergeant Digges put it, "not knowing what they could do until they had to," swam with the current to the new concrete Biltmore bridge and were lost to view. From the bridge the brave trio made their way to the Lipe house and finding it ut- terly empty, began their perilous return. This distance was made in three stages, each more difi^icult than the preceding one until finally the seemingly impossible was accomplish- ed when the boys "shinned" their way up one of the telegraph poles left standing in the river, which car- ries the sole remaining telephone THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD. 21 connection to the stricken village, and on the wire strung across the river made their way, hand over hand, suspended above the boiling current. In the last stage of this difficult progress the swirling waters be- neath and the height of the wire combined with an overcoming ex- haustion caused the boys to lose their hold. Falling again into the river they were at last within reach of their friends on the bank. Ropes were thrown them and amid the ap- plause of those witnessing the daring feat they were brought to shore. Nurses Met Death Like Heroes. Details of the drowning of Misses Charlotte and Marion Walker and Miss Mabel Foister reveal that those unfortunate victims of the flood met death with a courage as pathetic as inspiring. Those who saw from high ground in Biltmore the tragedies that they were powerless to prevent say that the trained nurses met their fate with even more than the heroism that one would expect from a v/oman trained to face death from day to day in the operating room or in the still- ness of the ward at midnight. Miss Foister had been spending the day and night with her friends Miss Charlotte and Miss Marion Walker at their apartments on the Plaza. Miss Charlotte and Miss Fois- ter both were graduates of Clarence Baker Memorial hospital at Bilt- more, Miss Walker in the class of 1911 and Miss Foister in the class of 1913. All three young ladies were friends of the Lipe family, and when awakened between three and five o'clock Sunday morning by the gen- eral alarm, and hearing that their friends, the Lipes were in danger^ they hurriedly dressed and hastened to their assistance. Walking or wading ankle deep in water from the first, they had made three trips from the Lipe house to their apartment, carrying what they could carry of the household goods, bedding and linen to their rooms, When they had made the third trip, and at about 6 o'clock, the water which had been lowly rising all the time suddenly came down like a tidal wave, with terrific force and swift- ness, and the young women were caught between the Lipe home and the Plaza, and carried down towards the Lodge gate. They caught hold on a large tree surrounded by one of the steel fences by which all the shade trees in and about Biltmore village are protected, and to this metal framework they clung with their hands, in water up to their necks, and with the tremendous pres- sure of the current pulling and sweeping against them. Their predicament could hardly have been more terrible, more appall- ing to the stoutest heart, but the brave girls still kept up their cour- age and their hopes. Knowing that they could not hold on long, and that to let go was to be instantly carried away and under by the swift-rolling waters, and with no im- mediate succor in sight they still tried to cheer each other. Miss Charlotte Walker was the first to fail in strength, and Miss Foister was seen to hold up her friend's head with one hand, maintaining her own hold on life and safety with the other, till the current tore the girl's weakened grip from the metal-work around the tree and she was instant- ly swept out of sight. Miss Foister then supported Miss Charlotte's little 22 THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD. sister, Miss Marion, until the little girl could hold on no longer and was torn away and lost to sight in the flood. Miss Foister was not able to maintain her hold long after her friends were swept away. Before the agonized eyes of scores of watching, helpless people, hoping against hope that she could hold out till help came, the unfortunate young woman was at length suddenly seen to let go and almost instantly sink in the muddy waters. Horace Smith, of Beaverdam, an eye-witness of the rescue of Elmer Bishop from the flooded water of the Swannanoa Sunday afternoon, told the story of the accurrence as fol- lows: "Young Bishop and a young man named Fletcher had come down to the river on a motorcycle Sunday afternoon. Hundreds of people were massed on Biltmore avenue watching the rescue work on the other side of the river. Mr. Paperone had been trying to cross the river with the help of a rope thrown across a telephone pole, and had found the current too strong for him. "Mr. Bishop and Mr. Fletcher got off their motorcycle and Mr. Bishop waded out into the stream saying, 'T can wade to the street car waiting room out there.' Dozens of people urged him not to attempt this, and to evrey step he tood, called to him to some back, that the current was too strong for him; but he went on as if their voices were the wind, deeper and deeper into the muddy water. Suddenly he took one step too far, and was caught by the cur- rent and swept away. , 'il never saw anything like the strength and swiftness of that cur- rent. That boy seemed to be turning somersaults in the water. He was rolled along head over heels, some- times out of sight. We thought he was gone. He was impeded by his clothes, including a heavy coat and leggins. "People kept calling to him to steer to the right, in the hope that he would get into shallow water and out of the worst of the current. He did manage to do this, and presently we saw hi mstop and come to his feet. "Do you know what saved his life? He was above the Vanderbilt nursery, and he caught hold of one of those litle trees, or he might have been in the French Broad now. "Everybody called to him to hold fast, and Mr. Paparone and another man started to him. They waded all the way, but one man was up to his chin when he got there, and they were big, stout men, able to stand up in the stream. They did not have to go into the worst of the cur- rent. "They brought him to shore, and he was the whitest live man I ever saw. He was sick from swallowing that muddy water. It was the mud- diest water that ever flowed, so mud- dy that it was thick. It was some time before Mr. Bishop was able to get on his motorcyvle and go home." Mr. Paperone, who was born on the bay of Naples, and has swam m rivers, lakes and the oceans, stated that he had never breasted so fierce a current as that of the Swannanoa Sunday. Finding of the Bodies. The body of Miss Walker was found Monday morning, shortly after daylight, just below the lodge gate to the Vanderbilt estate. - O) nj .^ o if a o a. QC ^ < o a a> c LU ja ns I — >, 1- — I- £ (U U- c o 5 o CO o nj ^ (0 £ UJ ? TJ ^ V > 4> •M M o > 5 ^ 1- Q. >> D. D c o 4> 3 ^•^ O) o T~ c i ^■^ i) > re re OJ ? THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD. 27 jumbled together in wild chaos. Riv- erside lake is a muddy pond now, separated from the swift rush of the river by a fewbedraggled trees, clinging to a mass of sand and ruins. The iron bridge conecting Bing- ham's school with Asheville disap- peared. Not even the concrete abut- ments remain. The several houses about the lake are strewn over an acre of ground in a thousand pieces. The valley as far as one can see looks like a pile of desert sand cov- ered with flood-washed rubbish. A strange feature of the action of the water is demonstrated along the double line of tracks crossing just be- low the lake to the park grounds. The steel rails held together in spite of the rush of the stream. They lie half buried among a mass of wreck- age stronger probably than the origin- al dam. Not a vestige of road ballast remains. Reuben Newton and his family came perilously near to losing their lives in the first rush of the flood. Mr. Newton owned a house situated at the eastern end of the Bingham bridge. The current split about the structure cutting it entirely off from Asheville proper and threatening each moment to tear the bridge from its foundations. At nine o'clock Sunday morning Mr. Newton, his wife, his son and only daughter and their negro cook were in the house. They failed to re- alize their peril until all chance of reaching the high bluff on the east bank of the river had passed. Al- ready the bridge was straining and groaning under the power of the stream. Mr. Newton ordered his family across the bridge, as a last desperate resort. As the party of five rushed from the structure on the oposite shore there was a terrific crash and the bridge crumbled into the torrent. The Newtons saved a centerpiece from their dining table and one val- ueless photograph. The road connecting Riverside park with the Weaverville highway resembles a gravel pile. Only the larger stones remain, every particle of earth being swept away. By actual measurement, the flood water submerging the park reached the ten-foot mark above the trolley line. Thomas Settle, who resides at "Or- ton" overlooking the French Broad river above Riverside park, was an eye-witness to the destruction of the Newton house on the river at the Asheville end of what was formerly Pearsons bridge. Mr. Settle said that he did not get to the river in time to see the bridge at Riverside park go down but was present when the Newton house floated down stream. A remarkable feature of the rescue of the family of Mr. and Mrs. Newton was that it was accomplished across the river and that the members of the family, all of whom were saved, liad crossed Pearson bridge and sought shelter on the other side of the river as they were unable to make their way from their residence to Pearson drive on account of the deep waters flooding in. General Situation in Asheville. Monday morning dawned on a strange and trying situation in Ashe- ville. In the whole city and surround- ings not a wheel was turning. Lamps and candles had dimly lit a night of Egyptian darkness, when for the first time in almost 30 years not a street light burned in the city. Notice was being made, not a street car, of 28 THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD, course, was running, not a train pulled out and only one aproached — a lone train on the Murphy division which came as near to the depot as the westren end of the railroad bridge over the French Broad, two miles away. Railway officials could not say when it would be possible to run trains. An alarming feature was the shortage of public suplies. Food did not at any time run low, but the kerosene and gasoline in town were &oon exhausted. In fact, the police commandered the available gasoline before it was all sold out. "There's our gasoline," said the driver of a public automobile, point- ing out to sight-seers at the concrete bridge a great tank car imbedded in lumber piled up against the pier. Newspapers had to hand-set type and get out their papers on small flat-bed presses. The telegraph offices were swamped under a deluge of messages from visitors or residents in Asheville wishing to assure out-of town friends that they were safe, that damage and loss of life were coniined to the river fronts. Western Union operators worked by 36-hour shifts, two days and a night at a time, all week, being cometimes as much as thousands of messages be- hind. Extra operators could not get into town and wire trouble added to thte difficulties encountered. There was no means of communica- tion with Hendersonville, Weaver- ville. Black Mountain, of Marshall, except by foot "We have food, air and water," said the citizens. "Let's be thankful for that and go t owork and clean up the flood districts and appraise the damage." Asheville water comes from the slopes of Mt. Mitchell,, 18 miles from the city and hundreds of feet f,bove it, and unlike the situation in flooded lowland cities, the supply was never endangered. Great Financiai Losses. Enormous losses were suffered by the industrial plants along the banks of the French Broad and Swannaoa rivers in and about Asheville. The loss of the Citizen's Lumber Com- pany is estimated at $65,000; $50,000 in the Asheville yards and $15,000 at the Biltmore yards. The estimate of the loss at the Hans Rees tannery is said to be over $200,000. Another great loser was the Asheville Cotton Mills Company, whose loss is approx- imated at $75,000 to $100,000. The National Casket Company, located on the French Broad river, is said to have lost at least $75,000. The Caroli- na Machinery Company's loss is esti- mated at over $75,000. The property of the McEwen Lumber Company was damaged to the extent of about $35,000. Williams & Fulgham lost lumber valued at about $12,000. The losses of the lumber companies at Azalea is said to be enormous. The Southern Railway Company's loss at the freight depot and in the vicinity of the concrete bridge was very heavy. The loss at the Owl Drug store at the depot was $5,000; the stock was a total loss, the fixtures were ruined. The water stood at eight feet in the store, making it impossible to save anything. Other plants on both rivers suffer- ed great losses. The property to the Southern was enormous. It was five days before a car wheel turned in Asheville. On Thursday after the flood the Weaverville cars « o aJ > +; C en (0 O « G UJ 5 ^ < < ^ o ^^ « £ Ul I .E"S -0 H — 4) z 3 C o J3 O CO ■D 1- t-' H S «) % _: m ■D £ z re >»- ^• 1- re ^ 4) (A Q re re UJ Q. ^ ii: — L. 3 Ui £ oc >•- i UJ t: re ■a E re ■M >*- I u. >, — 1- U) t. 0) .c L. C ■'-' £ ic +-» (0 re re c re £ UJ 5 « £ > ■0 0) > s_ 1> ^ a> (0 c Q. 4) t- a. D 4> 'Z" c ■V 1 1 THE NOiRTH CAROLINA FLOOD. 29 first came to Asheville. In about two weeks the street cars were put on half-hour schedules, in three weeks on 15 minute runs. By a strange chance, the machinery of the power houses was not ruined by the sudden flooding, but weeks of hard, patient, intelligent labor were required to clean out the sand and mud, and dry the transformers, rotary convert- ers, and armateurs. Danger of Fire Was Alarming. A new and startling situation arose after the flood, along the water front from the railway station to the cement bridge. Thousands of gallons of gasoline, oil and kerosene soaked into the lumber piles, box cars, fac- tories and storehouses. A carlessly thrown match, a cigarette butt, or a spark from a locomotive and a fire rivaling the flood horrors miglit instantly have sprung into life. Wednesday morning the situation was most startling. A stream of gaso- line a foot across was leaking from one oil tank and pools of the stuff stood everywhere. Large quantities of kerosene had also soaked into the buildings and piles of lumber. The danger of fire was minimized by the warnings given and the strict precautions taken by the city authori- ties, as soon as the dangerous condi- tion was realized. Rescue of a Boy Marooned 48 Hours. Tom McDowell, a 16-year-old boy of West Asheville, was rescued Tues- day morning from the store of J. C Brice, on the west bank of the French Broad river near the concrete bridge, after having been marooned in the little building, surrounded by the flood waters of the French Broad since early Sunday morning. McDowell had taken refuse from the rapidly rising waters in the little store, and his refuge became his prison. The store floated out into the river, where it jammed against same trees. The water rose to the boy's knees, to his waist, and Tom sought higher ground. He stepped up on the big icebox in the store, and then bethought him- self that he might become hungry before he reached dry land again, and wading and splashing about from shelf to counter he fllled his pockets with boxes crackers, with fruit, cheese, and such canned goods as he could open. Thus prepared he re- gained the ice box and laid the eat- ables on the nearest shelf within his reach. By this time the water had covered the top of the icebox, and now it began creeping up again, to his ankles, his knees, his waist. Alarmed, the boy look( 1 around and tried to think what he could do if the water rose to the ceiling of the store. An axe hanging on the wall opposite gave him an inspira- tion. Wading, half swimming, scram- bling, splashing, he crossed the little room and took down the axe, and re- turned with it to the top of the ice- box. Holding the axe above his head he chopped a hole through the shing- led roof, and as the water reached his armpits he placed a box upon the ice chest, and stood up on this with his head out of the hole in the roof — and the water around his neck. He placed his eatables out on the roof when he chopped the hole, and he coolly made a haerty meal while looking out at the scene of desolation around him. Houses, small and large, lumber, logs, a mule, washed by. Un- til noon, cramped, cold, faint, he 30 THE NORTH CAROLINA FLX)OD. maintained his critical and uncomfor- table position; then the waters be- gan to fall. After awhile he could get down on the icedox again, then he could wade about on the floor, but still the water was too deep, the current too swift, for him to venture out. All Sunday, Sunday night, and all day Monday, he was a prisoner in his little island. Tuesday morning rescue parties out in boats heard him calling for help and took him to shore. Grave Situation At IVIarshali. No single town was perhaps harder hit by the flood than Marshall, the little village on the French Broad ^4 miles down the river from Asheville. First reports from Marshall stated that practically nothing but the court house was left in this thriving little town. Fifty-three houses were said to have been carried away and two lives were reported lost. Marshall has practaly one street and its level is probably tifteen feet above normal river tide. The railway runs close to the French Broad, the main street is about 100 feet from the river. High mountain ridges at Marshall make a narrow gorge in which Marshall lay exposed to great danger from unusaually high waters.. Late reports were that the home oi P. A. McElroy and the Baptist church on the upper side of Main street were the only dry buildings in the main part of town. It is said that a telegram was re- ceived in Marshall giving warning or the coming flood in plenty of time lor every one to reach safety. The three who lost their lives had been in a safe place and as in the case of inmates oi the Lipe home at Biltmore, had re- turned to their home for some purpose, and could not again reach land. A plank had been laid from the top of the house of James Guthrie to the cliff. Guthrie, Mrs. Estelle Bridges and the child who lost their lives, had left the house and had been safe, but for some reason had gone back. While they were on top of the house it be- gan to move. They clung to the Chim- ney at the end of the house as the building moved away. The Chimney soon collapsed. Had they remained on the house they could have been saved as it washed against the southern de- pot and stopped. W. A. West estimated that property losses at Marshall amounted to about $200,000. Three or four residences ana some business houses were entirely washed away, and parts of others were destryed. Mr. West stated that Shelton & Ebbs, wholsale grocers, suffered most; of their stock $8,000 to $10,000 worth floated down the French Broad river. Bales of cotton from the Capitola Mlg. Co. whirled rapidly down stream while the waters were at flood tide this firms loss being estimated at $10,000. The two banks in the town lound that their records and papers were safe. The Marshall Woodworking company was a total loss. Only two lives were lost; these were James Guthrie, and Miss Altha Briggs, The brick building of the Marshall Motor company was undertmind an one wall fell; the Presbyterian church left standing was well coated with mud on the first floors. The Madison County Supply com- pany, wholesale grocers, lost from $5,000 to $6,000. Others suffered heavy losses are the Madison Hardware com- pany $4,000 to $5,000; N. B. Tweed, dry goods. $6,000; J. W. Nelson, gen- eral store, $5,000 to $6,000; R. N, Ram- sey, hardware,$5,000 to $6,000; Mc. THE NOlRTH CAROLINA FLOOD. 31 Kinney &Ramsey, general store. |5,uoo to $6,000; Marshall Pharmacy, heavy loss; E. R. Tweed, general merchan- dise, $4,000 to $5,000; Ebbs& Halcom- be, general merchandise. $5,000 to $6,- 000; Ebbs, Shelton & George, general merchandise, heavy loss including building. Madison county was hard hit in the loss of a number of new bridges which had recently been completed. A steel re-inforced concrete bridge across the French Broad at Marshall, just finished and accepted by the county commissi- oner. Was wrecked, three spans being carried away. A new bridge at Kedmon was also destroyed. At Marshall the river cut a new channel through the large island in the stream where a great deal of money had recently been spent in laying out an amusement park. Marshall.was forced to call for out- side aid. Rev. Calvin B. Waller, U. u., recieved a letter from S. Hensley, chairman of the Marshall relief com- mittee asking that he make an appeal to the people of Asheville in behalf ot the Marshall sufferers. The appeal was turned over to the Asheville reller committee for action. Marshall was cut off from the out- side world, except by dirt roads, which were in bad condition. The letter ot Mr. Hensley was sent from Marshall to Mars Hill and came to Asheville by way of "Weaverville. Mr. Hensley's pathetic letter follows; "Dr. C. B. Waller, "Asheville, N. C. "Dear Sir: "Our little town is completely wreck- ed, a number of people homeless, with- out clothes. Every store almost slean- ed out, wholsale houses swept of most that was in them. We have no flower or meal. People in the country are bringing in some. No sugar in the town. We need meat and bread, cash and so forth. Will not have train for three weeks or more according to re- ports. If you people could help us we will appreciate it very much in this hour of great need. "Two drowned bodies found, will be buried four p. m. Pray for us. Send any contributions to S. T. Hensley. chairman relief committee, via Mars Hill. "Sincerely, "S. T. HENSLEM." Carolina Special, Maroned At Marsh- all, First Reached By Fords. Five automibles from Weaversville were the first to reach the marooned Carolina Special Monday night. The machines all Fords, were driven by Gleen West, Floyd Fox, Finley Fox, Pete Rodgers and Troy West. Two or the cars belonging to Will Reagan, two to Fred Brown and one to Mar- shall West. In the party was Road Supervisor Lacy of the Southern rail- way. The cars made their way within two miles of the train which was stalled at Nocona, four miles below Marshall. On the way the boys over- took a large car loaded with provis- ions for the passengers. The larger machine out-stripped the Weaverville motors for awhile, but when it was next seen the car and the food had been deserted where the car had broken down. Taking the food with them, the smaller cars proceeded as far as there was a road. On the return trip the machines brought four passengers each to Asheville. The crews of the Southern railway's Carolina Special at Nacona and oi two freight trains which were brought 32 THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD. up to Nocona from futher down ttie river reached Asheville Thursday evening coming by way of Ford auto- mobiles through Mars Hill and Weav- erville. There were 20 members oi the three crews. Gleen West, Troy Fox, Floyd Fox, Peter Rogers, the same Weaverville chauffeurs that made the trip , Tuesday and Drought back 20 passengers of the Carolina Special, drove the cars in which train- men were brought to Asheville. The chaffeurs stated that the last trip was rougher than the first and that three times on the return trip the passengers had to walk a short distance. Mr. and Mrs. C. R. Fox of Cincinnati coming to Asheville on the Carolina Special were caught by the water Sun- day at Nocona and were forced together with the rest of the passengers to take to the mountain although the train has been moved to the highest track from the water. There was fear of the dam at Marshall breaking, but by night the water seemed to be at a standstill and the passengers returned to the cars for the night, although the water was up to the platform of the cars. Food on the dining car was very scarce and two scanty meals a day were allowed to each person. The food lasted until Monday morning. Scout- ing parties scoured the surrounding country and succeeded in getting en- ough together with the food sold to the passengers by the mountaineers to last until the next morning. Tuesday morning the passengers walked to the dam where they found ■wagons furnished by the Southern railroad to take them to Walkers , from Old Fort to Salisbury, Aug. 8, Morganton, Marion and Vicinity ByF. C ABBOTT On Saturday morning, July the 15tli, I had planned to take the early train via Statesville to Black Mountain to spend Sunday with my family at Rob- ert E. Lee Hall at Blue Ridge. The storm at Charlotte, however, had been so severe for twenty-four hours that It seemed wise to wait over another train and meanwhile con- sult the Southern office as to possible wash-outs on the mountain lines, and also, the weather ^JiUieau as to the continuance of the storm. Just there I "slipped a cog" for if I had taken the morning train I would have safely reached Black Mountain that after noon and have been saved the experi- ence which followed, and also saved my family much anxiety. The weather man told me that the (Storm was moving westward and would center over Asheville that night but would clear up on Sunday. Mr. Witherspoon at the depot told me that there were no delays or trouble on the line reported. Both statements were correct. No one now doubts that the storm centered over Asheville and vicinity that Saturday night. At Barber's Junction about two o'clock we passed the train from Ashe ville which had come through that morning, which proved the statement that there was no trouble on the line up to that time. NOTE — This article was published in The Charlotte News, Sunday, Aug. 6, and is reproduced here by permis- sion. Mr. P. S. Gilchrist joined me as we left the Charlotte station at 11:55, also headed for Black Mountain to join his family at Montreat. Leaving Barber's Junction for the west we soon overtoook the storm moving v/estward, and it was fully up to the standard of the rain which had just passed over Charlote. Every little stream was a torrent, every creek a river, and when we came in sight of the Catawba it was already out of its banks and over the tops of the growing corn in the lands adjoin- ing, and finally almost up to the level of the railroad tracks and close up to the bridge when we reached that point. We had no thought of danger, having been going up and down the road for years to the mountains. Be- yond the Catawba we ran slowly over several suspicious places on the road, and finally, just beyond Conelly Springs, came to a standstill, and after a brief investigation the train was ordered back to Connelly Springs for the night. First News of Trouble at Connelly Springs. Fifty of us picked up our grips and made a hasty rush through the train to the hotel and although it was Sat- urday night and past the supper hour, the electric lights disabled. Landlord Davis rose to the occasion and soon had us comfortable for the night al- though in some cases four in a room. It continued to rain steadily, heavily, furiously, all night long, but toward XXXVII 38 THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD. noon on Sunday the clouds began to break. We learned early in tbe morn- ing that the steel bridge over the Ca- tawba, over which we had passed a few hours before had gone down. We had news also of the disaster at Rhodhiss mill, and that a county bridge near by, thirty-five feet above the river had gone down and the high water mark was fifteen feet above where the bridge had been. We tried to telephone or telegraph our people as to where we were ma rooned, but could only reach Hickory on the east and Morganton on the west, all wires being down from those points. Monday, finding that we were still tied up, I called up Mr. J. A. Martin of Hickory and asked about the re- port as to the Rhodhiss mill, and he confirmed the news and added that several mills lower down the river were reported wrecked, and also gave us the startling news that all four bridges out of Charlotte over the Ca- tawba were gone. We began to real- ize that there had been "some" flood, and to wonder when our train would proceed. A number of people from Charlotte and other points of the state were at the hotel, among them Mr. F. N. Tate of High Point who had started for Chicago and Grand Rapids. He announced early Monday morning that he was going back to High Point, by automobile forty miles to Lincoln- ton, then to Mount Holly, where he hoped to cross the river as a friend there had a motor boat. His driver re- turned that night and reported his safe arrival at Lincolnton, and con- firmed the report as to bridges gone. Mr. Gilchrist and I discussed our sit- uation fully and finally decided on Tuesday morning that he would make his way back to Charlotte as best he could, and so get news to both his of- fice and mine, and I would work my way to Black Mountain, so as to ad- vise both families that we were still alive. I feel quite certain now that Mr. Gilchrist had the best end of the bar- gain, although I have not yet heard his story. He started for Lincolnton by auto- mobile, and I, by automobile, for Ma- rion, where our conductor assured me that I would be able to transfer to the Asheville train, as he learned before the wires went down Saturday night that the train had come down the mountain all right. Little he knew of what had happened. Mr. C. L. Lindsay of the Durham Traction Company of Durham, decided to join me on the trip, as his family was at Ridge Crest and would be wor- rying about his non-arrivai on Satur- day night. We had only mild adventures be- tween Connelly Springs and Morgan- ton. Were stranded in a creek at one place but managed by combined ef- forts of driver and passengers to pull out- At another point, learning that the creek ahead was impossible we rode along the steep slope of the rail- road embankment through grass and bushes. Mr. Lindsey shifted his two hundred pounds to the seat on the uphill side of the car, while I rode on the step on the same side, which help- ed to keep us from turning over. We found a path into an orchard, ran through this and the back yard of a farmer's home, up a lane and to the highway again, which was in very fair condition to Morganton. Enormous Damage to Valleys Around Morganton. Here we found Dr. Robey marooned, and learned of the enormous damage in the valley below Morganton. The beautiful valley farms seemed to be en- tirely ruined, buildings wrecked and ON THE SOUTHERN RAILWAY NEAR THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAINS. This track hangs sixty feet in the air, looking from below. THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD. 39 washed away, land washed into ridges and covered deep with sand. Among other things stranded there from up the river was a car of furniture sup- posed to have been washed out from a freight train at Bridgewater eight miles away and also a large white steamer automobile with no address attached. We changed drivers and machines at this point, having been directed to the garage of Mr. J. P. Pipkin, and he at once agreed to try to get us to Ma- rion. Now just a lin^^bout the said Mr. Pipkin. We learned from various sources, and but little from him, that he was the hero of the occasion at Morganton. He had just come through from Charlotte in his car, during the storm, arriving home late Friday night. On Saturday night he was awakened and told of the danger of several fam- ilies down the valley. With several companions he hustled down to a plan- ing mill and took forcible possession, over the protest of the watchman, of the lumber to build a boat. He stayed up all night and completed an eighteen foot boat, so well built that it leak- ed not a drop when launched into the Catawba river. AH day Sunday, and Sunday night, and part of Monday, he was in the river and on the river, taking people *rom their flooded homes, and rescued men, women and children from dangerous positions. This was the man who had agreed to take us to Marion, and a more re- would be hard to find, and his lead- ing mechanic, Mr. Ernest Hallman, who also went with us, was a good sourceful, energetic man of nerve second. When we finally arrived at Marion we were convinced that a Ford car, with Mr. Pipkin to drive and Mr. Hall- man as assistant, could be made to do about anything but climb a tree or cross the ocean. We surmounted insurmountable diffi- culties, we got by immovable obstacles we drove up and down impossible plac- es, and without a break or puncture of the new set of tires. A few Il- lustrations I will give you of the trip between Morganton and Marion. From Morganton to Marion Eventful Trip. We had no sooner crossed the bridge below Morganton, one of the very few then standing in Burke county, than we fell into a very "slough of despond." The entire road- bed over which the flood had passed was for 200 yards buried in the most slimy, sticky mud, of the consistency of thick molasses. We plunged along about 50 feet and stalled with the mud over the running gear, and thought our journey was ended almost before it had begun. But the enterprising coun- ty ofliciala of Burke, aware of condi- tions, had prepared to aid travelers. A heavy mule team was close at hand and the driver came at once to our rescue. He backed up his team, threw us the end of a heavy chain, which was promptly attached to our front axle, and away we went, mule power ahead, and full power on our engine, until we ploughed our way out and took the road again. All went well to Glen Alpine, and there we were informed that it was im- possible to reach Bridgewater, as bridges were gone and two miles of the Southern track washed away, but by keeping to the hills and following old roads and fords, instead of new highways, where all bridges were gone, we might run around Bridgewa- ter and reach Marion, where we still expected to take a train to Ashe- ville. 40 THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD. "You Can't Do It, It's Impossible" But We Did. A countryman came along just then and said, "You can't do it, it is im- possible, bridges are gone, fords im- passable, you will just have to go back. Why," he added, "I tried to get across there this morning with my team and I pulled the tongue off my wagon and the neighbors had to jacK my wagon out one side the creek and my team the other." Our driver took it all in, asked a question or two as to directions, and said, "Come on, let's go," and off we started. The country- man was right about the ford, and presently we fell in all right. Our wheels on one side in the quick sand almost over their tops, tilting our ma- chine partly over on its side. We sent for a team again, but could locate none in the neighborhood. We picked up a stout sapling near the stream, found a broad plank and a rail and with the help of a mountaineer who lived near by, we got a leverage under the car with the sapling, raised the wheels until we could shove the plank under, scraped away a part of the sand from the other wheels with our hands, and finally by the combin- ed efforts of the five of us, got a start, ran through the creek and up the op- posite bank and were off again. We climbed hills, where three had to push while one drove, and drove down hills on cross roads through the woods where we had to fill the ruts with old rails and limbs from trees to keep our running gear off the ground, and stranded once or twice at that. We went over stretches of roads, which would have put the traditional rocky road to Dublin to shame. We were finally stranded once more on the banks of a creek. A mountineer, whom we had asked for directions, had given us fair warning. "Why, you can't go through there," he said, "1 tried it this morning on my mule, and he got into the mud and quick sand up to his belly, and I had to prize him out with a fence rail." "Come on, let's go,' said our driver, and here we were, with the machine up to the same point in its anatomy that the mule had been, and some yards from the creek itself, which must yet be crossed. Help was near, however, for across the stream a gang of men with a pair of oxen were already at work on the roads. One of us crossed over as best he could and asked the driver to go over to our aid, which he promptly did. Oxen Thouglit The Devil Was After Them. Backing up to the machine, he hook- ed on and whipped up his cattle. They couldnt budge the machine, and the driver was for giving it up. "Wait a minute," said Mr. Pipkin, and sending Mr. Hallman to the rear to push, he suddenly turned on full power at low gear. The oxen jumped as if they thought the devil himself was after them, and yanked us out of the sand bar, and with ox-power ahead, gasoline power in the center and man power behind, we splashed through the creek over a high sandbar on the other side, through another mudhole and so to terra firma again. We drove down more hills, pushed up others by man power and gasoline power, we crossed flooded bottoms, through mud, quicksand and creeks. At one place, once a road, but now the bed of the stream, we rode up the stream over the rough stones for a hundred yards and finally, coming down a long hill to a crosisng on the C. & O. R. R. we found the road abso- lutely blocked on the opposite side of the track. SHOWING MOUNTAIN SLIDE COMPLETELY COVERING UP SOUTHERN RAILROAD. THIS OCCURS NEAR OLD FORT AND WAS AWAY FROM ANY STREAM. THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD. 41 Calling across the fields to a farmer we were told of another road about half a mile down the track which could be reached by a wide detour. Our intrepid driver said he could beat that, and sending two of our party ahead to flag any possible work train and leaving me behind as a rear guard, he turned his machine down the railroad track, and rode the ties, bobbing up and down like a rabbit, until he came to the other road half a mile away, when he called in his flagman and we all jumped in, "And the little old Ford went a running right along." We asked Mr. Pipkin what he would have done if there had been a high trestle with no ballast between the ties, and he replied he would have slipped off his tires, jacked up his car car on the rails and rode the track on the rims, and knowing our man, we have no doubt he would have done it. Soon we pulled into a little village about six miles out of Marion, and as the "shades of night were falling fast" we did not care to take chances in the dark, and stopped for the night. Reached Marion Wednesday Morning — Learn® of Destruction. Early next morning we were off for Marion, arriving without adventure about 8 o'clock. We found over 200 people marooned there on the last train down from Asheville on the pre- vious Saturday, and it was now Wed- nesday morning. The water supply of the town was off and the electric light system was also out of commission, and supplies reported getting scarce. A car of ice cream marooned on the track offered cold comfort to the in- habitants of the town. Among the Charlotte people we met were Mr. W. C. Dowd, Mr. Ralph Van Landingham and family, Rev. J. Q. Adams and Mr. Frank Harty. Also Sen- ator Webb, of Asheville. and Dr. W. W. Moore, of Union Theological Semi- nary, who had been scheduled to preach on Sunday at Charlotte. Learning here that not only was there no tain to Asheville but be- yond the three mile limit, not even any wagon roads or bridges, we left our grips at the garage with cards attached and jumped into our car for the last three miles, where we much regretted to part with our automobile engineers, and started for the moun- tain on foot. Mr. C. L. Lindsay, of Durham, was still with me, also Mr. Roy C. McNeill, of the Consolidated Engineering Com- pany, of Baltimore, who wished to get to Asheville and decided to og with us. My personal baggage from here on comprised a safety razor, a pocket comb, and a fountain pen. The scene just above Marion was a wild one, acres of tall trees between the highway and the river bed, where the flood had passed, being bent over like a corn field after a hurricane. There were holes in ihe highway in which you could drop several automo- biles with room to spare, a large iron county bridge at this point being quite badly wrecked. We followed the high- way, or what was left of it, until we struck the railroad again and followed this to Greenlee. Bridge Approaches All Gone — Ties and Rails Swinging. When we came to the large steel bridge over the river approaching this place, we had our toughest experi- ence. The bridge itself was standing all right on its piers, but 50 feet of the approach had been absolutely washed away, leaving the rails swing- ing in the air with the ties still hang- ing to them, but sagging in the cen- ter of the section about four feet, and twenty feet above the river below. 1 42 THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD, have walked many a high trestle in my younger days and it would have been no special trick to walk the ties on this swinging section of track, but the ties were in bad shape, some of them loose and hanging by a single spike and we were afraid to trust them. We learned afterward that a German cit- izen had crossed just before us. He was asked if the bridge was still standing, and he replied "Yes, but i possumed da rail." This was what we had to doy Those who know the graceful position of a possum on the limj of a tree this will be perfectly clear, but as some readers may not understand, I would state that to "pos- sum" a rail, one must get down on all fours, and walk the lower flange of the rail with his toes pointed in from each side while he walks the top of the rail on his hands. Mr. Lindsey, as stated, weighs two hundred pounds, and Mr. McNeill, the Baltimore en- gineer, was six feet two in height and as slender as a fence rail, and the picture we presented, as we "pos- sumed" the rail in single file, must have been more picturesque than graceful. The position was too much for me, doubled up like a jack knife, walking a slippery rail, with visions between the ties of a twenty foot drop into the river, and it got just a lit- tle bit on the nerves of all of us, and presently we changed the order of our going. We dropped on our knees, not to pray, although it seemed an oppor- tune time, and with the rail between our knees, so that if the tier fell from under us, we would still have the rail between us and the river, we walked the fifty feet on our knees over the ties, and on our hands on top of the steel rail. If any one thinks this mode of trav- el is a joke on a hot July day, there are still plenty of opportunities over this line of railway to try it. Still Another Crossing Made on Tie» and Rails. We reached the bridge and walked the beams to the other end, only ta find that the worst was still to come. Another section of the track about ^^ feet in length, and swinging twenty feet above fbe river, now confronted us, with a still greater sag in the center, and with also a number of the ties gone, some places two or three at a stretch. We had come too far to go back, it was now but a comparatively few miles to the end of our journey. It was case of "Pike's Peak or Bust. ' and again dropping on our knees, and one at a time, we took the ties as be- fore. When we reached the vacant places where the ties had dropped off, we stretched out at full length along the rails till we could reach the next tie ahead and gracefully pulled our- selves across the gap on our stomachs, with a very striking view of the river below, until we were safely over the ties again, when we proceeded on our knees once more. When we reached the opposite em- bankment, we were fully ready to quit. Mr. Lindsey with his extra weight, and entirely unaccustomed to out-of-doors exercise, was "all in." He was fairly purple in the face and his tongue was hanging out, and he sank down beside the track with the exclamation, "This captures my Angora." After a brief rest we took the track again and nothing fazed us any more, for we walked many a high trestle with the supports partly knocked out and many a swinging section of the track much higher in the air, but as the ties were still firmly spiked to the rails, we didn't even stop to consider the mat- ter. On the right, between Greenlee and Old Fort, a mountain range parallelled the track some distance away. There THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD. 43 were four distinct slides visible on this mountain where rock, trees and earth had slid down the mountain from top to bottom, leaving great red gashes as if made by some gigantic plough. Half of Beautiful Greenlee Valley Farms Ruined. About half of the beautiful farm- ing land in Greenlee valley is abso- lutely ruined. Arriving at Old Fort about 1 p. m. we had a good ainner and about half an hour rest. Also, by good fortune, we ran across a moim- taineer, Mr. W. P. Denny, coming to Old Fort for provisions and whose home was out at Ridge Crest near the top of the mountains, and who cheer- fully volunteered to guide us up the mountain. He steered us clear oi many hard places, although we had all the experience we needed before we got to the top. The main part of Old Fort escaped much damage, but the new section west of the railroad was pretty badly wrecked, the river changing its course and now flowing through the center of this section of the town. The first striking sight we noticed just as we got out of town, was a church located on the side of a hill. A landslide, and a small one at that, had come down the mountain and banged up against the rear end of the church crushing in the whole rear wall, bulged out its sides, tilted its steeple to one side, like a man with his hat over one eye, and there it stood a complete wreck. Not Only Railroad But Entire Foun- dation Gone for a Mile. Around the next turn we came to the river, and a complete picture of destruction was before us. Not only the railroad but its very foundations had been swept away for the best part of a mile. Some of the track is buried under tons of sand and rock, then rises over a solid wedge of trees and stumps, then swings gracefully down in a long loop over the river to an embankment, then disappears again entirely. From here to the top of the mountain at the entrance of Swanna- noa tunnel there is one continual scene of destruction. At some places track and foundations have dropped entirely into the river, heavy con- crete abutments are in some cases broken and the track sagging down, several sections of track suspended in midair anywhere from twenty to sixty feet, simply the rails and ties being left, the fills having gone from under them, and in other places slides down the mountains covering the track absolutely out of sight with mud, gravel and rocks. When we reached the first tunnel, not far from Old Fort, we found the heavy sill of a house across the mouth of the tunnel, and it was evi- dent that the flood had not only filled a thirty foot gorge, but had fiowed through the tunnel. "That's the sill of this man's house," said our guide, jerking his thumb toward another mountaineer who had joined us at Old Fort on his way home with a sack of fiour on his shoulder, and later on . when we had parted company with the man he told us the story as fol- lows: "I knew when I waked up Sunday morning after a terrible rain all night that there would be trouble down at his house, and my fourteen year old girl was down there helping his wife, as there was a three days' old baby in their home. I peered over the cliff when I came near enough and looked down on their house. One end of it was partly under water and the other end on the rocks, just a teetering up and 44 THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD. down, ready to go down stream at any minute. "They had all left the house, and the mother, too weak to stand, was sitting on a rock with the water part- ly gonig over her. The man with the baby in his arms was standing by, and also my own girl was there. I hur- ried down the mountain and got a few neighbors, went down to the convict camp, got the superintendent, who brought along a coil of rope, and we hauled them out of there. We found a pair of old wheels and rolled the woman to a place of safety." The house, a two-story one, is still hanging there on the rocks, the little mountain farm surrounding it abso- lutely gone, and the stream has changed its bed to the other side of fbe house from where it originally flowed, so that the house can probably be oc- cupied. "Wait and I Will Show You Some- thing" Said Mountaineer. We kept exclaiming at the various sights, and each time our mountaineer guide would say, "Just wait and I will show you something." Just above the convict camp and not far above An- drews Fountain or Geyser, which has ceased to spout, we climbed out oi the gorge, over a high embankment and came to a section of the new auto- mobile highway, which we followed around the mountain for a short dis- tance. As we rounded the last curve, our guide exclaimed, "Now look, there it is," and they lay before us a ter- rible scene of destruction. A section of the mountain nearly three hundred feet wide had slipped out from under the Southern railroad, leaving the track sixty feet in the air with all the ties attached, hanging in a deep graceful loop from crag to crag. Close by another slide about 100 feet in width had occurred, carrying with it the roadbed, rails, ties and all. The two slides had merged just where the new automobile hignway crossed and the combined avalanche had cut through this new highway like sa much cheese and had gone thundering down the valley fully three hundred feet below. This slide has carried with it the supply pipe to the geyser at the foot of the mountain, and we saw one sec- tion of the pipe sticking out the side of the gorge. This was the most startling sight on the entire trip, and our mountaineer's description of it was most striking. He said, "They tell me a cloudburst did it, but I was just coming down the mountain and saw it done, and was very nearly caught in the slide. That water did not come from above, it came from be- low. The trees on the side of the mountain just popped right out Ly the roots, with the water spouting after them, and the whole mountain just busted wide open and slid down into the valley below." I believe he was correct in his theory. The ground had soaked in au the water it could hold, down to bed rock, and the pressure underneath the soil on the side of the mountain had become so great that this under- ground reservior simply burst out and carried everything before it. It now began to rain heavily again, which we found decidedly refreshing after the heat of the day. About two miles up the side of the mountain, we came to the guide's home. Mr. Lin- dey was completely exhausted, as we had made fully 2u miles that day un- der conditions I have described. We helped him into a buggy standing un- der a shed, and he lay back on the cushions and our guide went on up to his house. Soon his two little girls came trotting down with a big can of SCENE AT TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN ON SOUTHERN RAILWAY No streams near. Deluge of water down the mountains car- ried away railroad ties and roadbed. THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD. 45 buttermilk, and soon after our guide appeared leading his mule, saddled and bridled, and ^•ith true mountain hospitality proceeded to refresh us with the buttermilk. "We then helped Mr. Lindsey on the mule and led us a mile higher up the mountain where the bottom dropped out of the road again because of another slide, and the guide and mule turned back. It now only about two miles to Ridge Crest, and on a very easy grade, and we all succeeded in pulling it through to that point, where we left Mr. Lind- sey to join his family, and the two of us struck out to Black Mountain two miles away, going over more swinging sections of the track be- tween Ridge Crest and Black Moun- tain. Looking Like a Tramp Reaches Destin- ation — Slips In Back Door. I left Mr. McNeill at Gresham Hotel and started off the remaining 2 1-2 miles to Blue Ridge in the dark. Reaching there about 9 p. m., soakea with the rain, spattered with mud, and without a collar and with shoes about gone, I sneaked into the basement door of Robert E. Lee Hall, and found my way up to Dr. Weatherford's office, and sent his assistant Mr. Jenkins, to notify my wife I had arrived. She thought he was playing a joke at first, but he finally persuaded her to come to the office, and after being intro- duced and finally convinced that the tramp who stood before her was the man to whom she was legally tied, she asked me how in the world I got there. I replied if I should tell her what I had done and what I had seen within the last two days, she would set me down as the greatest liar in North Carolina, but that I would tell her tomorrow after getting rested. After resting a day and telling my story to a number of Y. M. C. A. sec- retaries and speakers at Blue Ridge several parties were organized to tramp down a few miles on the moun- tain to see some of the sights I had described. Among them Dr. Brown, of Vanderbilt Universitj, and Dr. Kent of the University of Virginia. On their return to Blue Ridge, after wit- nessing the sights on this division of the Southern Railway, they told me they would be perfectly willing to sign a blank sheet and let me fill in any description I could possibly make, for it would be impossible to exaggerate the story of what they had seen. So if any of your readers see fit to ques- tion this story. I refer them to these well-known gentlemen and to any number of the Y. M. C. A. secretaries who made the trip down the moun- tain. In coming up the day before, our mountaineer guide had avoided the tunnels so I had not seen condi- tions there until this return trip. None of the five tunnels at the top of the mountain had caved in, as had been reported, for I have been through or over every one Ci them. There have been land slides near the entrances of two or three of them, so that in one, some of the party wa- ded through up to the waists in the water, and in the next tunnel t"/'' wa- ter had banked up, in one place eight feet deep, and two of the Blue Ridge men swam through it. One slide be- tween two of the tunnels had c ied away the entire railway fill to such depth that a telegraph pole was hang- ing by its wires adjoining the track, and the butt of the pole was fully 15 feet above the ground. 46 THE NORTH CARO'UNA FLOOD. Starts on Return Trip Monday — Takes First Train Since Flood. On Monday, the 24th, I started for a return to Charlotte, taking the first train since the flood out of Black Mountain to Asheville, and witnessed the destruction at Azalea, Swannanoa and Biltmore, which at the first named place is almost beyond description. The railroad to Hendersonville being still out of commission I went down by auto twenty-five miles and spent the night with Mr. A. J. Draper, at Flat Rock, who has also a very lively experience to relate about his trip from Charlotte to Flat Rock. Early the next morning, the very first train since the fiood from Hen- dersonville to Saluda, carried m© to that point, where I stopped at Mr. S. B. Tanner's residence to get the latest news from Charlotte. From there I tramped the ten miles down Saluda mountain to Tryon, caught a train at 5 o'clock in the afternoon for Spar- tanburg, and at 8 o'clock took train 40 for Gastonia and came over on the first ferry at 7 o'clock Wednesday morning, and reached Charlotte on the P. & N. the third day after leaving Black Mountain, this trip ordinarily taking six hours, and so completed the most strenuous "week-end" trip to the mountains that I shall probably ever experience. .2 3 t; -Q J^ ™ 4j § 5 b o > ^■^■^ o -^ ns O Q. <- V ■4-» c «i >^ re c > O) y 2 ■:: . to 'm — . If) .? « O) L. ._ o — re a « ah o *• c *-• re If.? E OT^_ .■° .. -H eg ™ ;S E o m 2e-.^ ■a > re u) "D 5 « -M V O £ -J J.E£ Bat Cave and Chimney Rock Catastrophe {Reprinted from The Charlotte ^ews "Not in another hundred years, could a like disaster happen to the Bat Cave region, no matter how heavy the rains," said W. S. Fallis, chief engineer of the state highway com- mission, in Asheville after walking twenty-five miles through the heart of the Blue Ridge devastated by the floods of July 16. Mr. Fallis, with Wade M. Patton, another of the state highway engi- neers, and just finished his inspection of the damaged highway through the Bat Cave country. This inspection was made in accordance with instruc- tions wired him by Governor Locke Craig. Many Gaps. "Out of the seventeen miles of the highway," said Mr. Fallis, "possibly five miles will have to be rebuilt. There are many gaps of from 200 to 300 feet in length absolr ely gone. The bridges are all out. The terrific mountain slides were responsible for most of the damage and loss of life. "The greater part of the damage was caused by the mountain slides. 1 suppose I saw the effects of more than 300 of these slides. They ap- peared to have started close to the top of the mountains. For a dis- tance of possibly from seventy-five to 200 feet in which they removed every- thing clear and clean in their paths. It would be quite impossible to con- vey any idea of the terrific force of these slides. Everything movable in their path was swept to the river be- low. Trees were denuded absolutely of every vestige of bark. Rocks were ground smooth. Buildings were car- ried away in the irresistible rush. Na- ture had been long preparing the mountains for the catastrophe, and not for a hundred years could such another disaster happen to the moun- tains there, no matter how hard, or how long it might rain." For long stretches, said Mr. Fallis, the river gorge is not more than one- eighth of a mile in width, with many sheer walls 1,200 feet and more high. During the storm from this narrow gorge an inferno of noises escaped to the starless sky above — and men who never before have known fear felt its cold hand clutch their hearts that night. For nature once more reveled in all her ancient and elemental strength. Tne outcry of the river's torrent; the indescribably heart-shaking crashes of the mountain slides, one after the other; the steady and never ceasing downpour of rain, were segments of a symphony of the gods enraged — and the theme of that elemental sym- phony was death ?nd destruction. A Mountain Tragedy. The highway engineer speaks of one slide, which starting slowly close to the summit of the mountain, carried away the home of E. B. Huntley. In that mountain home were the father, the mother, and their two children. XLVII 48 THE NORTH CAROUNA FLOOD. Lights were burning there, for their cheer was needed, and around the hearthstone before a smouldering fire were gathered the little family. From below came the never-ceasing clamor of the infuriate driver hurling un- imaginable masses of water and rocks against the mountainside. Outside a world in the making, with not a star in the heavens nor a gleam in of light. The rain came in sheets, beat- ing against doors and windowpanes. Outside utter desolation and things they knew not of. Inside, warmth, light, fancied security. But suddenly above the outcry of the river below was heard a still more terrific tumult above them, on the side of the mountain. It stilled all other noises, and with it came shocks which shook the dwelling and the world upon which it rested. Closer and closer came that crashing horror, and almost before the family knew of its coming it was upon them. The man of the house staggered to the door — opened it — and in some fashion or another, stumbled outside. Before his little family could follow, and they possibly did not understand even then why they should leave that protecting glow of the smouldering fire for the utter blackness of a new world outside the slide had torn their home from where it had rested for many years, and hurled it over and over again much as a child tosses a pebble. Helpless to Aid. The husband and father, clinging desperately to a tree just outside the path of the slidi, as helpless to aid or to save as a new bom babe, watch- ed with brain reeling his home with the lights still gleaming, go hurtling down the mountain towards and into that torrent of turbulent fury below. whose roar seemed to intensify in an- ticipation of still more victims. The man lived — is still living — but needless to say that so long as time shall last with him never will he for- get that vision of sudden death which deprived him of all that was most dear. The mother was found later, close to the brink of the river. She was hanging, head downwards, with one foot caught in the crotch of a tree. The children were found later, too. Mother and children now rest in a common grave, close by a laurel thicket near where their home once stood. The path of the slide is cleared of all vegetation to the living rock. Not a blade, a bush, a tree remains. In many instances so terrific was the force of that rush of earth and rocks that it possessed the characteristics of a glacier, and groun '. the very rocks themselves smooth. Multiply this three hundred times, in greater or less degree and the effects of these slides in the heart of the Blue Ridge mountains may be grasped, say those who have returned from that country. In one case, at the home cf J. M. Flack, the slide came down, carried off the earth upon which rested the pig pens of the owner of the farm carried pigs and pen to the bottom of the mountain and there co-* ered them up under masses of rock and eartn. But the next day the hogs had rooted themselves free of their prison an . are now none the wors for their ex- perience. In another instance, says Mr. Fallis, the torrent excavated all the dirt from around an eighteen-foot well, leaving the well high and dry above the surrounding ground with its stone walls still intact. Instead of a well it is now a column of stone set in the midst of a boulder-strewn field. : « o -a >> V "7> ns o cc -S - £ c s- O 3 D ni _ X ~ -a « •; 'J o ■7 I. (0 < C 3 H zl| D -M 5 OS „ ni ^ +j H 35 .? S S (u 2 « 2 iJ- > CO o °- o 8 -= « E s- C/5 ^ O O) t> UJ O E ^ z E ^ i 5 Ui H- ° o O) O o -S -^ c CO «, fS " i .E 5 >;o ro m -? £ TO . 3 ^^ +' -- ^ w to ■>- f^ re o) ^2 5.E THE NORTH CAROONA FLOOD. 49 Speaking specifically of still anoth- er instance of the floou s pranks, the engineer refers to a field completely covered with large and small bould- ers. This was once a fertile five-acre patch of corn. It is now covered completely with rocks, and not a ves- tige of dirt is visible. The Tragic Story Of Bat Cave. Nowhere was destruction more ap- palling, more sudden and complete, and loss of life more horrible, than m the famous Bat Cave and Chimney Rock section; Capt. John T. Patrick, well known as a promoter of big enterprises in North Carolina, and inrecent years identified with development at Chim- ney Rock, arrived in Asheville trom the latter point Wednesday having walked from Chimney Rock to ii'air- view, and coming from the latter place in a buggy. Capt. Patrick arrived at- tired in overhalls, and wearing but one shoe, all his clothing and other belongings having gone in the rush or the Rocky Broad river, which had played havoc with both lives and pro- perty in all that section. Captain Patrick said the storm there began Friday, torrents of rain falling so heavily that one could see only a few yards. The destruction be- gan Saturday, and not only was the rain heavier there than on this side the mountain, but the destruction was vastly greater in proportion to tbe number of homes and business enter- prises involving. "By 6 o'clock Saturday afternoon," said Captian Patrick, "the river was in full flood, and building after build- ing was swept away, not only on tn© lowlands, but even on the mountain water filling every low place and ev- sides, where there were torrents ol en pouring like waterfalls down the channels 30 and 40 feet deep, from summit to valley. The landslides were numbered by scores, 25 to isou feet in width, sweeping boulders ana full grown trees before them. "Seven persons are known to have lost their lives in the floode, at Chlm- eny Rock and vicinity. In one case a dwelling was torn away in which was a young woman and two children. The children were saved, but the body of the young woman. Miss Stacey Hill, was found far below the site or her dwelling, laying head down, her foot caught in the crotch of a tree. "The horrors of that night cannot be told. The rain fell in such solid masses that one seemed to be under a waterfall, and it not only imder mined houses but actually tore them to pieces. The noise of the rain was like continuous thunder, added to the roar of the river and the shock of the mountain sides literally crash- ing into the valleys. It was in tact a cataclysm, such as these mountains have probobly not experienced in re- cent geographical periods. The forces of nature setting themselves to a gl- ganic movement simply paralyzea anything that man could do and lit- erally stunned imagination. The peo- ple who went through that awful night can never forget the shock of it. "Throughout the night there were hours of horror, and when daylight came the worst scene of desolation ever viewed in the mountain became visible. The river began to recede, at times, and then, strange to say, would suddenly rise again, walls or water coming down the river like an ocean tide, with the thunderous noise of waves beating on a rocky coast. The greatest height of the water was reached at between 10 o'clock and midnight Saturday night 50 THE NORTH CAROUNA FLOOD. "At Bat Cave every store was car- ried off. The utter destruction of tne river wiped out everything. The river has widened to two or three times its usual width. Only houses built deep in the mountain sides are standing at Bat Cave. "The state has had for months a special force of convicts building a splendid highway between Asheville and Rutherfordton through the Hick- ory Nut Gap. Great stretches of this are obliterated. Bridges and high banks of earth have been replaced by holes in the ground. The aspect or the valley, in many respects one oi the most scenic in North Carolina, has been in many respects changed. Captain Patrick places the known dead at seven, but says there may be more. Mrs. B. E. Huntley, of Bearwallow mountain, Middle Fork creek, has been found and buried," said Captain Patrick. Her children, God buried. Their bodies were not found. Miss Stacey Hill was literally knocked from her home on the side of the mountain. Two childern in the house saved themselves. Issac Connor, a very old man, was at Tilton Freeman s home. They left their house to go to the bam which seemed to be on a safer site. Water undermined the barn, and as they hurried back to the house the old man got seperated from them and was drowned in the Hood, and a baby of Freemen, in it's motH- er's arms was torn from her grasp» lost and never found." Dr. L. B. Morse, who arrived at Hen- dersonville Tuesday night after walk- ing with great difficulty from Chimney Rock, stated that the island at Chim- ney Rock was completely gone. All bridegs between Hendersonvilie and Bat Cave and Chimney Rock were gone. Mr. Morse walked for 18 hours to reach Hendersonvilie and was one of the first to bring news from the Chimney Rock and Bat Cave section. According to Dr. Morse the flood situation at these places was alarming among the buildings destroyed were the village stores. Relief parties were organized at Hendersonvilie and started for Bat Cave. Telephone connection with Bat Cave and Chimney Rock was impossi- ble Many telephone and telegraph wires, including those to Fairview and small villages along the Swanna- noa river which were operating for a short period last night were down. The Asheville-Charlotte highway near Bat Cave and the scenic road from the main line to the base oi Chimney Rock was completely washed away. Dr. Morse was one of the owners of the sceinic road which is reported to have cost $25,000 FLOOD SCENES AT ELKIN. (1) Southern depot nine feet under water. (2) Blanket mills of Chatham Mfg. Co., half submerged. Car loaded with blankets was driven through lower end of this mill. This and water dam- aged mill $100,000. (3) The mill after the water went down. Force of men who have been cleaning out mud and wreckage, headed by president H. G. Chatham (standing fourth from left) and Capt. G. T. Roth (on left end, wearing black vest.) The Yadkin River, Flood and Destruction (By W. M, BELL This Yadkin river rises in Grand- lather Mountain, near Boone, in Watauga county. It is an innocent looking spring branch for several miles down the mountain side. Other branches and brooks flow into it and as it passes Patterson, it begins to be a good sized creek. Down through "Happy Valley" it gathers other water; still it is not so large that the old time foot log has to be discarded as a mode of crossing. At Elkville, in the extreme northern part of Wilkes county it gets within the river class and a few miles far- ther on it is fed by Reddies river above North Wilkesboro. Here it gets its first boost. A peculiarity of this stream is that all of its tribu- taries flow from the north side. On the south side the valley is not so wide, being cut off by the Brushy mountains and only small streams empty into it from this side. Twelve miles below North Wilkes- boro, Roaring river, a treacherous stream formed in the mountains from three forks, known as North, Middle and South Fork, empties into the Yadkin. At Elkin, eight miles farther south the Elkin creek, a good sized stream, but called a creek, contributes its waters. Between El- kin and Donnaha, a distance of about forty miles, Mitchells, Fish and Ar- ratt, rivers empty. These rivers head in Alleghany county and flow down through Surry county for from fifteen to thirty miles. The Yadkin has a flow through Wilkes county of thirty-two miles; it is the line be- tween Surry and Yadkin and Yadkin, Davie and Forsyth counties. It is also the dividing line between David- son and Rowan, Stanley and Mont- gomery counties. At Rockingham before reaching the South Carolina line the name of the Yadkin changes to the Great Peedee. Former Flood Stages. Prior to July 16, 1916, the Yadkin river had never with a single excep- tion been known to be higher at floodtide than twenty feet. On Sep- tember 23 1898, a cloudburst in the mountains on the north bank caused a flood tide of thirty-two feet. Twen- ty years, before when engineers made a survey of the Richmond & Danville Railroad (now a branch of the South- ern) the highest water marks were twenty feet. The railroad was locat- ed five feet higher. In those days rains would fall, and heavy rains, for possibly two weeks. The river would rise gradually and reach its crest several days after the rain had ceas- ed and would be an equal length of time getting back to normal. The country had been developed and built, since the building of the rail- road, on the same basis as the rail- road grade. LI 52 THE NORTH CAROUNA FLOOD. Railroads Touch River at Donnaha. The North Wilkesboro branch of The Southren Railway from Winston- Salem strikes the Yadkin river valley at Donnaha and for more than sixty miles it traverses the valley follow- ing the river bank, in some places the river water flowing along at the foot of rock fills. From North Wilkesboro, following the river for more than twenty miles. The Watauga & Yadkin Railroad is in course of construction, its objective point being some point in Tennessee. On July 16, 1916, after three days of heavy rains, developing into cloud- bursts in the mountains, the Yadkin and its trubutaries went on the ram- page. The river rose and rose rapid- ly, to a height of forty-one feet at Elkin and at some places where the valleys were not so wide, a higher mark than this was reached. Back in the mountains where the natives live in the valleys in num- bers of places great slides of earth gave way and completely submerged homes, farms and vegetation down below causing untold loss of life. Down the valleys the waters swept every thing before them. When the Yadkin river was reached the water carried toll amounting to millions of dollars along in its wake. The Watauga & Yadkin Railroad, allready experiencing hardships in getting on a sound financial footing was wrecked and washed away al- most beyond repair. The Southern Railway all the way from North Wilkesboro to Donnaha was damaged to an amount hard to estimate. It was forced to suspend trafic entirely for ten days and it will be months and perhaps a year before the roadbed and bridges will be in as good shape as before the flood. North Wilkesboro Hard Hit. North Wilkesboro, the largest town on the river was, perhaps, most damaged. Located at this town is the half million dollar tanning plant of C. C. Smoot & Sons., Co. This plant was wholly submerged and in addition to property damage the company lost thousands of dollars in hides and tan bark which were washed away. The Shell Chair Co., was a heavy loser, and numbers of lumber mills and much lumber also were greatly damaged and washed away. No loss of lives was record- ed at this town but there were many narrow escapes and rescues. At Ronda, and Roaring river great dam- age was done. At Elkin the heaviest loss was at the blanket mill of the Chatham Manufacturing Co. The wa- ter overflowed the mill, doing more than $100,000 damage. A car load of blankets on the mill siding was moved from the track and swept half way through the main mill building. livery stables, machine shops, and everything located below the railroad at this town was either damaged or washed away entirely. Several homes were eight and ten feet in water and a number of homes ocupied by colored people entirely washed away. No loss of life was reported from this town. At Burch, Crutchfield,, Rockford, Siloam and Donnaha, small towns along the river great damage was done. The Southern Railway was also a heavy loser at all stations along the line to Donnaha by its freight stations being under water causing damage to freight in storage. DURING THE FLOOD AT ELKIN. (1) Bridge street looking south. On either side of this street, where the water is seen, rows of dwellings were swept away. (2) Front street, bridge floating and E, & A. railroad completely under water. (3) Roller mill, half-mile from river, and above the railroad, nine feet under water. THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD. 53 Damage to Farms Great. The damage in the towns along the line hardly compares with the damage to farms and bottom lands. Many of these wide bottoms were filled with growing corn and tobacco. These crops were swept away and in many instances the whole bottoms were carried along, leaving only sand and gravel. Long after the outside world ceases to talk about this great flood that fell with one quick swoop on these poor unfortunate people of the mountains and swept away their savings, their homes, and their farms, many of them will be still struggling hard for mere existance. O) «- « c «>-L •r -Q j_ .-•'-'- 5.^ — 5 I. re ■* oj 1- -o c c C O 3 ,>,^ o DC XI C . o O Sf O ^ -o — t- M- T3 re o C o o V (0 Q.E^^ o o^SS ♦J o -° *- T3 -1 - *J 1. V l^^t." T3 o c ~ — o G THE ew cha uJIding ilion do o o E £Z-| CO tr - ^ Ml c DSi§ re o Q ^ I c L.- >^ -:s£ o 'fe>:. •»- o «- ^ re ™ V E o 3 !- 73 X (L> l- o 5 ■«-< -L T3 4, 3 re C I. V P 3 « Co J £i OJ (0 *• ^ , -a •u ^ ';;;a: The Flood At North Wilkesboro B^ ARTHUR T. ABERNATHY As Moloch devouring the inno- cents; like the Ganges feeding on the bodies of breast-bereaved babes; like as Herod slaying Isreal's first- born, so did the once peaceful, placid Yadkin, lashed into a maddened fury and hounded on by the Reddies and Elk trubutaries, devour in its rabid rage as it ran amuck of the fertile Yadkin Valley in the most devastat- ing flood that has swept Wilkes county in its history. It has been my lot to witness some harrowing catastrophes. Before the floods had subsided I stood in the Johnstown valley and witnesed the sickening spectacle of hundreds swept to their untimely graves by the bursting dam that placed that happy community in the record-book of disaster. I saw the North German Lloyd piers burn in Hoboken, and stood far out on the charred docks as the Bremen and the Saale burned to the water line, while strong men and heroic women cooped in their boiling hulks, crying to God for a succor that only came in eternity. I saw the Hunt-Wilkinson fire on Market street in Philadelphia, where sixty-six hard-working girls burned into crisps, my very blood chilled at the awful spectacle of girls mak- ing futile efforts at rescue on red-hot fire-escapes that set their clothing on fire and roasted them like festi- vals of demons. But they died. They found peace. Here on the usually peaceful Yad- kin, where men work with an enter- prise that is marvelous; where thrift is the household word of every fam- ily, I witnessed the little homes of families just begining to see indus- trial hapiness, caught in the maw of the awful storm-god, and devoured with unpitying mercilessness while brave men paced the river front where their all had gone swirling by, and cried out: "Is there no arm to save? Is there no rescue for the perishing?" Men Forget Own Losses — Save Wo- men and Children. The thing that melted me to tears most as I stood on the stormy banks all night playing the searchlight of my automobile on the shaking build- ings where helpless mothers and crying babies were marooned with the fiood surging about them, was the absolute indifference of the men of business to their own losses in the presence of probable death to the unfortunate victims caught in the raging tide. Mr. James D. Moore, a great-souled business man whose plant had been among the first to yield its toll to the insatiate greed of the torrents, learned that two young men were about to be carried down in the Shell Chair Factory, a part of whose buildings had already been swept away. I had just retired to bed, wet and tired. Mr. Moore called me. "Can't you come with your LV S6 THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD. automobile and play your powerful searchlight on the waters so we can save them?" The city lights had al- ready been destroyed. The rain was tailing in a sheet of water. I tlressed in a pair of overalls — the only dry clothing I could find — and started plunging down the steep hill expecting every moment to pitch headlong down the embankment. When I plowed through the mud to the place, Moore was on the bank, building boats — utterly oblivious that he himself was one of the heaviest losers in the town. Soon Mr. C. D. Coffee, perhaps the heaviest local individual loser by the flood, drew up by my side with his automobile, and began playing its light on the Chair factory where C. H. Miller and L. E. Stacey, two employees of the Smoot tannery, had become ma- rooned while swimming to the rescue of Mrs. Smoot and other ladies on the tanbark in mid stream. The other losers joined in the futile all-night vigil — a sight not to be forgotten: brave men, facing financial bankrupt- cy, submerging the thought of their material losses in the dread pres- ence of the possibility of death to the victims of the raging current. It makes life worth the living when we realize that great industrial cap- tains place a greater value on human life than on the mere accumulations of property. There was a seeming fitness in the situation when the Wilkes county fair grounds surrendered their stately structures to the gormandizing greed of the seething maelstrom. What could a fairground be to a people bereft of their fertile farms, their growing grains, their promising crops? These, too, had gone hurtling down the valley, swept away in the storm. Every iron and steel bridge in the county went with the flood, except the bridge between Wilkes- boro and North Wilkesboro which re- mained, as if to knit us together in our common sense of desolation. The manufacturing and lumber yard districts of this once thriving community present a sense that would sicken the stoutest heart. With mud two to ten feet deep in many places, and millions of feet of lumber entirely destroyed, the two rivers seemed to lap their tongues for more food and leaped from their accustomed courses, tearing across farms, private lawns, fertile flelds and manufacturing districts until for awhile it seemed as if the entire lower part of North Wilkesboro would be engulfed. I cannot enumerate the individual losses. Neither can I describe the details. Let it suffice to say. no pen can exaggerate them. Five persons of whom we know sacrificed their lives to the fiood in this community. Othrs I believe will be discovered, for already vultures hover over much o fthe debris down the railroad track, which itself proved as fragile as an egg-shell before the impetous storm. Carnegie medals should be given the two Martin boys, Oscar and Augburn, for acts of personal heroism as sturdy as ever Mucins Cordus did in the days of the Ro- mans. They swam the stream at its height, brought in shivering men and fainting women, until they were exhausted by their efforts. North Wilkesboro will build again. No havoc can stay the progress of such a sturdy people. In Wilkes County After The Flood SyJOHN C STERLING The territory I covered embraces the village of Roaring river, the river front of North Wilkesboro, and a portion of the northwestern section of the county, known as the Reddies River scetion. This river and its tributaries were followed as far as possible toward their head in the Blue Ridge mountains. The conditions I found were far beyond my expectations. The ter- rible havoc wrought, the untold suf- fering that has followed, especially among the women and little children, and the great damage done to the county of Wilkes must be seen to be comprehended in their true light. It was my good fortune to have as my companion on the trip up Red- dies River Mr. C. E. Jenkins, a hard- ware merchant of North Wilkesboro. He is known by and knows most of the people in his county and the roads, paths and trails are famil- iar to him. Start Up Reddies River. We got away from North Wilkes- boro at 7 o'clock Thursday morning, (July 27) headed toward the Reddies NOTEJ— This story is a part of a re- port made by Mr. Sterling to the Re- lief Committee of Winston-Salem. Mr. Sterling was sent out by the com- mittee to investigate the conditions of those in need of assistance in Wilkes county. Mr. Sterling is a member of the Winston-Sentinel staff. river head. This river is comprised of what are known as the North Fork, the Middle Fork and the South Fork. They all come together about twelve miles from Wilkesboro, near what is known as Deep Ford. One route led up the river for a mile or more, then across the ford, and followed the Miller's Creek road to Deep Ford. Following up the river we came to the Jefferson turnpike, and up the turnpike for a short distance. Then up the river to near Whitington's store on the opposite side of the river. From this point to the head of North Fork we followed the river bed, there being no road from this point into the mountain coves and valleys. Farms Valuable Before The Flood. The stream traverses a ravine be- tween the mountain ranges. The val- ley almost all the way is very nar- row, only litle pieces of ground being available for cultivation. These lit- tle bottoms, however, before the flood, were vrey productive, and even away up in there were worth from $100 to $150 per acre. There were, however, very few tracts that embraced as much as an acre. The river is hardly over 50 feet in width, shallow in most places and quite swift. During the flood this river or creek extended from mountain to mountain, and so swift was the cur- LVII 58 THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD. rent that it turned almost the entire valley for miles and miles into a river bed leaving nothing but sand and rocks. The road up this way- had followed the river's bank, and of course when the banks went so did the road. From Whittington's store up as far as we were able to get, a distance of eight miles, we were in the old road only about 150 feet. The other part of the journey was made up the bed of the river, or across fields, pastures, woods and thlskets. We crossed and recrossed the stream time and again. Some of these fords are very treacherous, not only being deep but having more or less quicksand on the bottom. The people on this fork of the river have very small farms in cul- tivation. They own more or less of the surrounding mountains, but they are too steep for cultivation. The principal agricultural product of this section is corn, but they also raise wheat (about enough to furnish them bread,) quite a lot of Irish potatoes and each and every family has (or rather did have) a nice little garden which was very productive. Quite a lot of the people in the northwest- em section of the country are engag- ed a part of the year in getting out tan bark and roots and herbs. Big Lumber Flume Wrecked. The big lumber flume followed this stream for about 25 miles, but this flume is a total wreck, and it is said it will not be rebuilt, as the score or more saw mills have been washed away and the desirable timber pretty well exhaused. The flume was ca- pable of transferring 250,000 feet of lumber daily from the mills up the river to the company's plant in North Wilkesboro. There were several small grist mills on this stream, but every one of them was washed away. We found several little stores that had escaped destruction, but these stores had very little food stuff on hand. There were a number of dwelling houses washed away or demolished on this stream. If I am not mistaken the number of dwellings destroyed numbered eighteen. Also a number of barns, cribs and other outbuild- ings Up in this territory the families are very large. Litle healthy look- ing children are to be seen in num- bers. They are very simple people in their wants and they certainly live the simple life. River Bed Now Wliere Roads Were. Crossing the mountain from the North Fork we traversed the Middle Fork as far as we were able to get. This creek or river also traverses a ravine or valley. The Jefferson turn- pike follows this stream some dis- tance. The turnpike, however, is badly damaged and canot be trav- ersed farther than Vannoy's store owing to the fact that the river has washed the road next the mountain completely away and the river's bed is now where the road once was. About one mile farther up the turn- pike leaves the river and it is said to be in fair shape across the moun- tain. However, the bridges back in the mountains are gone. The damage to the river bottoms on the Middle Fork is not so com- plete as we found on the North Fork. However, this river brought down and deposited in fine lands great quantities of drift wood and other •5.5 flj — ?^. >», ■a -a flJ V 4> o 5 ■O 4- o W « I* O s- c .^ •;: o - c« ^ CO O c ^^ o " . E 1) W O - 55 ^^ - -C -^ > I. 4> t. Z £ O E -^ E ■!-> O E o re (8 ps 5 4) o) re ^^ +j o> -' 3 re O J^ THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD. 59 heavy rubbish. Trees, two and three feet in diameter, were hurled down this stream for miles. One gentle- man estimates that there are 100,000 loads of driftwood on his bottom land, this gentleman being the only man in that section who has a bot- tom that is of any size. All this driftwood will have to be moved or burned, as it is worthless. Homes, Stores and Mills All Gone. We found that seven or eight houses, several stores, mills, bams and other outbuildings were washed away on this stream, and the little bottom tracts either washed away or covered over with a coat of sand varying in depth from six inches to five feet. Following a trail across the moun- tain range we came into the ravine through which the South Fork wends its way. Here again we found the flood's path had ripped the valley, washed away homes, barns and every thing in its path. Hundreds of Land-slides Caused From Cloud Bursts. There have been hundreds of land- slides or waterspouts on the moun- tains in the section we visited. One party informed the writer that he could count 54 of these slides from a point near his house. These slides as a general rule started at or near the top of the mountains and carried everything before them. The width of the slide extended from 25 to IB© yards and in some instances were a mile in length. At the bottom of the mountains, where they struck, were to be found immense holes in the ground, and tons of rock and trees of all sizes. The natives re- port when these slides are moving they make a noise similar to thunder and come with terrific speed. So far as we were able to learn, there were two deaths from the flood in the Reddies river sectoin — one a little boy killed in a landslide, and the other, a woman, was drowned. Land Slide That Devastated Entire Valley Sy IV. E. FINLEY One of he freaks of the landslides in the mountains of western North Carolina was known as the Jack Branch catastrophe in Wilkes county. William E. Finley of Wilkesboro made a personal investigation of this landslide and wrote as follows to the Charlotte Observer; "Yesterday I rode a horse to the top of the Brushy Mountains In Wilkes county west of Russell's Gap, tied the horse to a tree, and walked down the southern slope of Little Onion Knob to the head of a long, narrow ravine, down which flows a small stream locally known as 'The Jack Branch.' The purpose of such a journey was to see for myself that which has been the subject of con- versation among all the people for miles around since the 15th of the month, the big land-slide. would not move the huge boulders which are now lying one-half mile down the valley below where they have lain since somewhere in the prehistoric past. No one knows from whence the water came, but they all know it came, and that with such terrific force that it broke loose the solid rock from the mountain side, leaving the ragged crust of the cliff to fall in and fill up the great gap swept out by the stream of water, as if the hammer of Thor, hurled from his iron-gloved hand, had buried itself in the cliff. No sooner were these rocks broken loose than they were carried whirling down the mountain as if Neptune had pierced the clouds with his three-pronged tri- dent and all the waters had been emptied out in the small space of 300 feet. Where Did The Water Come From? Mountain of Rocks Sweeps Down Mountain. '•'No one pretends to know just the source of a volume of water large enough, and with sufl[icient pressure to literally tear out the side of a granite cliff and hurl it with terrific force far down into the level plain below. Every one is asking, 'Whence came this ocean of water? Was it belched up out of the earth, or did it pour down from the clouds?' But no one seems to know. If the Ca- tawba river were turned into the Jack Branch, and the Yadkin river were added for good measure, the combined strength of the two rivers "Beginning here, as abruptly as if blown up by a mine, a shapeless mass of debris, 20 feet high, swept down the long ravine, groaning, grinding, seething, surging to the lowlands, plowing up trees and earth and rocks as it went, and adding them to the great mass. Not only was the earth torn up to the rock beneath, but the solid rock, kept firm by the deep layer of earth cov- fcring it was chiseled out like a trough to a depth of five feet and for a distance of hundreds of yards. LXI 62 THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD. "One would . aturally suppose that the heavy rocks would drop out of the mass and lodge at the foot of the steep incline; but there are boulders, dozens of them, weighing at least 10 tons, lying one-half mile below where they first broke loose, which, strange as it may seem, trav- eled over half the distance down a grade of not more than five per cent. "One who had never seen this val- ley before can only vaguely imagine the havoc wrought by this land- slide. As one looks over the desert- like waste of rocks and logs and sand, one would never dream that a week ago it had been a green valley, darkened by the shade of trees whose branches were bending under their heavy load of ripening fruit. "Rocks, rocks, rocks! For a dis- tance of more than a half mile along the valley, varying in width to con- form to the lay of the land, there are rocks ranging from the size of coarse sand to half the size of a Pullman sleeper. They are piled and packed and jammed together in ugly confusion over all the valley to a depth of from three to ten feet. If one should venture to say that a train of 30 cars, loaded by 1,000 men, could not haul the rock from this valley and pile them up a mile away in 12 months; or if one should say that a carload of dynamite, all exploded at once, could not break loose so many rocks, he would doubt- less be thought to use hyperboles. But one will be convinced that either statement would be conservative when one stands on the ground — or rocks, and sees for one's self. Remarkable Feature. "A remarkable thing about the behavior of the land-slide in Its course is the fact that it did not always seek the lowest ground. For instance, there lies a mulberry tree, stripped of its bark and limbs, on the side of the hill in the path of the slide. It has been torn out by the roots and mashed to the ground. Just across the stream from it, and standing on ground 10 feet below its level is a lumber hack which was left untouched. "There is no sign left to mark the place of the Russel home which was knocked into splinters and swept down the stream. A few pieces of furniture, or rather bits of furni- ture, may be seen strewn along the edge of land-slide's path. Beyond this there is no indication that there ever was a house there. A large poplar tree marks the place where Mr. Russell and his wife, each carry- ing a child, blinded by the mud and water, beaten almost senseless by the surging rocks and timber, fought their way to safety some hundred yards below where the house stood. "Five centuries from now the aged mountaineers living in that re- gion will be telling the children a story, as tradition will have it, that once upon a time the waters gath- ered in the mountains above and, without warning burst out in the valley and carried death and de- struction in its wake. The old man will become more grave, and the eager listening child will bend his ear to hear the story of the three children who went down with the waves and of the one who was never found." Staring Death For Twenty-Four Hours — Saved Experiences of KILLIAN and WHITE Mr. J. D. Killian, resident engineer of the Southren railway wlio was one of the eighteen men who went down witli the bridge at Mays- worth, Sunday afternoon, and was rescued after twenty-four liours, by the two negroes, Alphonso Ross and Peter Stowe, speaking of his liar- rowing experience, a few days after ■wards, said: "When the trestle was suddenly swept away I thought my time had come." "Tons upon tons of debris and dirt of various kinds were beating against the steel structure and threatened to carry it away at any moment. The remains of a cotton mill was only a part of the debris we had to contend with. "A steam derrick assisted us in our work. Several times the derrick moved off of the trestle to let peach trains pass. However, the last time it moved off the bridge went under. "When the structure went down I was walking from the lower beams of one span to another. I lost my hold and dropped to the river, which was about 40 feet deep. I was sucked un- der and thought I would never reach the bottom. You can imagine my surprise when I suddenly bobbed up a few feet below the trestle. When I went under the terrific current caught me and shot me clear of wreckage. In the meantime the steel work of the trestle tottered over the Tiver, seemingly just enough to let me get by safely, before it fell. "Eighteen employes of the South- ern and three linemen of the West- ern Union went down with the struc- ture. Those who were not killed out- right under the impact of the falling steel work were in great danger of being hit by heavy pieces of debris in midstream. We caught planks and anything else we could lay our hands upon, floated on down the river, catching hold of trees as we came to them. "At this time the water was rising at the rate of two feet an hour and just about the time I had setled my- self as well as I could in the circum- stance the raging torrent would be- come too much for the tree and the Catawba would lift the tree by its roots and send it on its way to the Atlantic. "In this way I was forced to change my roosting place about eight times during the night and the next mirning. Once I became entangled in some vines on a tree and gave myself up for a second time when the water swept over it. Finally I disentangled myself and renewed my struggle for life. "At dawn, H. T. Verner, and B. M. English, jr., came to the rescue of three other men and me. We were in the same tree. Verner and English succeeded in reaching us, overcom- ing great odds,, but when one of our marooned party stepped into the boat it was overturned and was swept LXIII 64 THE NORTH CAROUNA FLOOD. down the river. So our little tree party was augmented by the addition of Vemer and English. "We were greatly wearied and tired out by our exertions and the two young men cheered us to renew- ed efforts. There were now six of us out in the middle of the Catawba. About noon on Monday, after being in the water for 18 hours, two ne- groes, Alphonso Ross and Peter Stowe, rowed out to us in a flat bottomed boat and took three of us to the shore. I, being in much better condition than the other three men who went down with the trestle, stayed over with English and Vemer until the second trip. "The negroes took the men safely to shore and came back for us. They told us they would take us to the short only upon one condition, and that was that we entrust ourselves entirely to them and let them engin- eer the boat as they saw fit. Needless to say we agreed to the proposition with alacrity. After we were taken to the shore the negroes rescued an- other man who was in a tree about two and a half miles from the trestle." Mr. Kil]ian told of an amusing oc- currence out in the river. One of the men who were in the trees was ex- tremely nervous and on the slightest provocation wanted to float down to another tree. He was in the act of jumping off the tree he was in and making for a tree below him when suddenly one of his companions call- ed his attention to a big water moc- casin hugging the tree that was his objective. He decided to remain where he was. Julius White, one of the colored men saved from the river Monday af- ter 18 hours in the water, told his story in vivid language, des- cribing the sinking of the Maysworth trestle and his long night-ride down the roaring river on rafts and logs and trees. White said that he was working near Supervisor Griffin Sunday after- noon, cutting out the debris from the trestle, and that suddenly the trestle began to sink down. It then rose again and about that time there was a snaping noise at one end, "like all the world was coming to an end,'* said White, "and then I went under, holding on to a part of the track ta which I had scrambled trying to get off the bridge. I went under the wa- ter, it seemed to me, at least 40 feet, and then came up." White said that as he came out fin and that the latter slowly shook of the water he saw Supervisor Grif- his head at him. What the supervisor meant White did not know, but both were making towards a raft, and White says that he held back t& give Mr. Griffin a chance, but that the latter suddenly went under the comer of the raft, seemingly drawn under by the surrent and was seen no more. Then White seized the raft and held on for his life, with twa logs about his body, hampering his progress. He kicked clear of these and then went with the raft a short distance, and finally got a tree. For six or eight hours until nearly mid- night he clung to trees within sight of the trestle, and finally White says "I shouted to the watchman that I was gone, and let go of the tree I was holding. I drifted down the river all night and must have been in forty trees before daylight came. It was the same everywhere. I would get a tree, and it would serve me a little while and then I would have to get out and drift on to another. I got my THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD. 65 shoes and part of my clothes off and was thus able to swim pretty well, but several times when I tried to swim to the bank I failed because the current was too swift. "After daylight there were two lit- tle red-birds that came to the tree where I was perclied," said White, "and 1 looked while they seemed to be studying me. When I laid eyes on them I said, 'Little birds, I'm going to get out of here,' and sure enough it was not long till the white men came from the Gaston side in a boat and got me off that tree. It was about 10 feet from the ground where I was perched that Monday morning." White stated that he saw the body of a woman clad in white floating down the river Monday morning. He was unable to get a very close view of the body but was certain it was that of a woman apparently drowned for some time. He also stated that he saw a cotton ginning plant in the river and could even see the new ma- chinery in the building as it floated past. He wanted to get inside where he stated that it looked dry and com- fortable but he could not let go the tree that he was holding to for his life at that moment. The Breaking of Lake Toxaway ( Reprinted from AshevilU Times) A dozen times on the fateful "flood Sunday" the rumors went round that Toxaway dam had broken. It did not break that day, nor that week, nor tbe next, but Sunday night, August 13, four weeks after the great freshet, the dam at beautiful Lake Toxaway gave way to the long season of rain and higb water, and the third and greatest lake was lost to western North Carolina. R. F. Williams, for years operator and railway agent at Lake Toxaway wired the Asheville Times: The beautiful lake known as Lake- Toxaway is no more. On or about seven o'clock Sunday evening a small opening appeared in the dam and the water trickled through in a small stream, which rapidly grew and in a few minuets the dam was doomed. Messages were sent to Asheville to warn towns in South-Carolina to look out for high-water, as It was feared that great damage might be done Dy the rushing waters. In about fifteen minuets more the whole dam fell in with a mighty crash. The water, at first clear as crystal, changed to a muddy torrent, as it rolled down the narrow chasm that nature had left be- tween hills, carrying with it debris or all kind. The electric power plant erected several years ago at a cost of ten thou- sand dollars which supplied the botel and cottages with light went down as if it had been made of paper. But the man in charge of the plant had been warned and escaped by climbing the side of the mountain. In the meantime the telegTaph office was a busy place, and people began pouring in to wire their friends tbat they were safe. Much anxiety was ex- pressed as the people in South Caro- lina who might be in the path of the flood. Crowds of people watched the water as it poured through the dam. The long pent up water roared with ex- plosions as of dynamite as it escaped behind the mighty dam that had im- prisoned it so long. The long continued rains during the summer had weakened the dam and once an opening appeared it was doomed. The hotel was not damaged in any way except by loss of the power plant supplying electric light. But the owner of the estate E. H. Jennings ot Pittsburg, Pa, had suffered, serious loss in the destruction of the dam which took months to build and which was constructed about 13 years ago. The cottage people were not dam- aged in any way. Trains are running regularly and number of sight-seers came up to see what remained of the once beautiful lake. There was no loss of life the pro- perty loss can be replaced and it is planned to restore the resort to its former beauty. Just as the dam was breaking. George Armstrong of Savanah, (ia. came down the lake in his launch, but seeing the water rush throu,s;h the LXVII 68 THE NORTH CAROLINA FLOOD. narrow opening in the dam wisely and when the water subsided it lelt turned around and made up stream, towards the opposite side near the hotel and reached the hotel in salety. He had to abandon his boat at the dock the boat in a great depression in the lake. The lake is throughly dramea and almost dry except for puddles here and there. Engravings by BIERMAN ENGRAVING CO- Charlotte, N. C. CHARLOTTE lllllll ru's'A.1 Printed by NEWS PRINTING HOUSE Charlotte, N. C. $^&:i^.&MM'^/Wi^.My^^^^^^ i',-'* ,> .■' ':.y'