tops, while others sought safety in trees, that the fact dawned
upon the inhabitants that their city had been visited by as great a
calamity perhaps as that which had fallen upon the Miami Valley.

The bodies of 200 persons lay huddled in the United Brethren Church on
Avondale Avenue, according to O. H. Ossman, an undertaker, who explored
the flood district in a rowboat.

He said this report was made to him by a man who said he had been able
to reach the building and look through the windows. Police who sought to
confirm the story were unable to reach the church because of the
current.

Ossman said nineteen bodies had been taken to his undertaking rooms and
that he has been asked to be prepared to care for sixty-nine other
bodies. He said he counted fully two hundred bodies in wreckage on West
Park Avenue.

Members of searching parties who were able to explore the west side of
the city, south of Broad Street, for the first time reported that that
section was a scene of vast desolation for a great area, much of it
being still under water.

The names of more than a half hundred persons were placed under the
caption "known dead," while the list of probable dead was too great to
be collated at that time. The number of missing and unaccounted for, it
was said, would reach far into the hundreds.

An Associated Press operator, who was marooned for hours in the flood
after it broke early Tuesday, reached the Columbus office Thursday after
having traveled by a circuitous route covering more than forty-five
miles in order to get into the main portion of the city.

He saw more than a score of bodies washed through the flood, and said
that house after house was carried away in the flood. Many of the small
frame cottages were wrenched to pieces by the currents and their
occupants thrown into the water to be seen no more.

It was believed that many bodies would be found at the Sandusky Street
bridge or lodged against such part of it as was left in the river at
that point. Further exploration of that part of the west side was begun
Thursday afternoon.

Because she had no home after she was rescued from the flood district,
Miss Florence P. Shaner and William G. Wahlenmaier were married. They
had intended being married in May. The girl was rescued by Wahlenmaier.
Her mother was drowned and their home swept away.

STORIES OF THE HORROR

Other men who had ventured into the flood district told corresponding
stories of awful