y.

Seven Acres of Wreckage.

Just below the bare plain where the business block of Johnstown stood,
and above the stone arch bridge on which the Pennsylvania Railroad
crossed the river, are seven acres of the wreckage of the flood. The
horrors that have been enacted in that spot, the horrors that are seen
there every hour, who can attempt to describe? Under and amid that mass
of conglomerate rubbish are the remains of at least one thousand persons
who died the most frightful of deaths.

This is the place where the fire broke out within twenty minutes after
the flood. It has burned ever since. The stone arch bridge acted as a
dam to the flood, and five towns were crushing each other against it. A
thousand houses came down on the great wave of water, and were held
there a solid mass in the jaws of a Cyclopean vise.

A kitchen stove upset. The mass took fire. A thousand people were
imprisoned in these houses. A thousand more were on the roofs. For most
of them there was no escape. The fire swept on from house to house. The
prisoners saw it coming and shrieked and screamed with terror, and ran
up and down their narrow quarters in an agony of fear.

Sights to Freeze Their Blood.

Thousands of people stood upon the river bank and saw and heard it all
and still were powerless to help. They saw people kneeling in the flames
and praying. They saw families gathered together with their arms around
each other and waiting for death. They saw people going mad and tearing
their hair and laughing. They saw men plunge into the narrow crevices
between the houses and seek death in the water rather than wait its
coming in the flames. Some saw their friends and some their wives and
children perishing before them, and some in the awful agony of the hour
went mad themselves and ran shrieking to the hillsides, and stronger men
laid down on the ground and wept.

All that night and all the next day, and far into the morning of Monday,
these dreadful shrieks resounded from that place of doom. The fire
burned on, aided by the fire underneath, added to by fresh fuel coming
down the river. All that time the people stood helpless on the bank and
heard those heartrending sounds. What could they do? They could not
fight the fire. Every fire engine in the town lay in that mass of
rubbish smashed to bits. For hours they had to wait until they could get
telegraph word to surrounding towns, and hours more until the fire
engines arrived at noon