d foreboding. Those
who were able to do anything sent their appeals for aid to outlying
cities before the wires had absolutely failed.

Added to the terrors of flood and darkness was that of fire. In the wild
rush for places of safety that followed the first warning of the danger
from the bursting levees, lamps were toppled over, electric wires were
crossed and soon flames were mounting high in many sections of the city.

Representative H. S. Bigelow introduced a bill in the legislature to
appropriate $100,000 for the flood sufferers in Ohio, the money to be
handled under the direction of the Governor.

With no change in the number of reported dead in this city, estimates on
Wednesday placed the probable dead at from one hundred to one hundred
and fifty. Columbus was still being drenched and torn by flood waters of
the Scioto and Olentangy Rivers. The scene of devastation on the west
side was partly made visible to residents of other sections of the city
for the first time in two days. The isolation of the western section
again became real when the last remaining bridge gave way before the
torrents.

Numerous persons who were considered conservative asserted that they saw
scores of bodies float down stream and dozens of persons carried away in
their houses.

Miss Esther Eis, rescued from her home on the west side, said she saw
the house with George Griffin, wife and seven children collapse and
disappear, and another house containing John Way, wife and five
children, break up in the flood.

Besides the actual tragedies that were enacted in connection with the
flood the most exciting incident occurred at the announcement that the
storage dam, several miles north of the city, had broken, sending its
great flood to augment that of the Scioto River.

The scene that followed was one of wild panic in all parts of the city.
Patrolmen, soldiers and citizens in automobiles, tooting horns, ringing
gongs and calling through megaphones a warning to every one to seek
safety in the higher parts of the east side, sent thousands in flight,
while many, stunned by the supposed impending disaster, collapsed from
fear or gave way to hysteria.

It was more than an hour before the report was officially denied. Police
officials assert that the report was made to them by persons connected
with the military end of the patrols.

City officials said that the storage dam was holding fast against the
millions of gallons of water that were