e. Dr. Cline, the chief of the station, who
had been directing all precautionary measures since five o'clock in the
morning, went to his home for lunch at half-past three o'clock that
historic afternoon. The wind was then blowing fifty miles an hour.

"'I reached home,' wrote Dr. Cline, 'and found the water around my
residence waist-deep. At once, I went to work assisting people, who were
not securely located, into my residence, which, being large and very
strongly built, I thought could weather wind and tide. About 6:30 P. M.,
one of the other weather observers, who had been on duty since the
previous midnight, reached my residence, where he found the water neck
deep. He informed me that the barometer had fallen below 29.00, that no
further messages could be got off to Washington, or anywhere else, as
all the wires were down, and that he had advised every one whom he
could see, to go to the center of the city; also, he thought that we had
better make an attempt in this direction.

"'The roofs of houses and timbers, however, were flying through the
streets as if they were paper, and it appeared suicidal to attempt a
journey through the flying timbers. Just at this time, the anemometer in
the Weather Bureau office registered one hundred miles an hour and blew
away soon after. In the next hour the wind rose to a velocity of one
hundred and twenty miles an hour. Many people were killed by flying
timbers, about this time, while endeavoring to escape to town.

"'The water rose at a steady rate from 3 P. M., until about 7:30 P. M.,
when there was a sudden rise of four feet in as many seconds. (Hundreds
of people, undoubtedly, were killed and drowned during those four
seconds.) I was standing at my front door, which was partly open,
watching the water, which was flowing with great rapidity from east to
west. The water at this time was about eight inches deep in my
residence, and the sudden rise of four feet brought it to my neck before
I could change my position. The tide rose in the next hour nearly five
feet additional, making a total tide in that locality of about twenty
feet.

"'By 8 P. M. a number of houses had drifted up and lodged to the east
and south-east of my residence, and these, with the force of the waves,
acted as a battering ram against which it was impossible for any
building to stand for any length of time. At 8:30 P. M. my residence
went down, with about fifty persons who had sought it for safety, and
al