ter
Factory]

With military glasses rescuers standing on the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad near Center Avenue could see several dead forms lying on the
roof of a building to the east.

Four babies were reported to have been born in a school house on the
hilltop.

According to those who invaded the stricken district, the churches, big
state institutions and storerooms in the hilltop section were crowded
with refugees. They tell stories of indescribable horrors.

Former Mayor George S. Marshall, who was in telephone communication with
Cecil Randall, his law partner, said that Mr. Randall estimated the
death toll at several hundreds. Throngs of excited groups of people from
the flood-stricken section of the city who were crowded into the
temporary rescue quarters asserted that the estimate of Mr. Randall was
not exaggerated.

Neither the extent of the awful tragedies enacted during the sweeping
away of homes nor the exact death tolls could be known for days until
the mass of wreckage, houses and uprooted trees which were strewn on the
level lowlands south of the city were uncovered. This mass of debris was
under several feet of water, with swift currents running in many
directions.

Many of those rescued told of escaping from their homes by fractions of
minutes, just before the rushing waters swept their homes away and
crushed them like eggshells against bridges. Scores of entire families,
these people assert, were swept down with their houses in the swift
current.

Every available inch of space in the Columbus State Hospital for the
Insane and Mt. Carmel Hospital on the hilltop was occupied by refugees.

Fire Chief Lauer, who was marooned on the hilltop beyond the flooded
section, reaching that point of safety in his automobile just before the
waters swept the lowlands, said that he saw scores of people standing on
their porches as the waters swept down and that he could not see how
scarcely any of them escaped.

After two nights of horror, during which hundreds clung to housetops
calling for help until their voices gave way, while dozens perched in
the branches of trees, many were still beyond the reach of rescuers.

ORDERS TO SHOOT LOOTERS

J. W. Gaver, Justice of the Peace at Briggsdale, swore in several
deputies and armed them, with instructions to shoot down all looters.

Relief trains from Marysville and London, bearing food and clothing,
relieved the situation in the refugee quarters on the hilltop,