ic-stricken and told wild stories of the flood, saying nearly every
part of the town was under water and the conditions becoming more
serious.

The breaking of the Tarleton reservoir, which supplies the drinking
water, left the city without water and added great danger of typhoid in
the use of flood water.

Frank Purviance, an employee of the Terre Haute, Indianapolis and
Eastern Traction Company, at Dayton, over the long-distance telephone
said scores had been drowned there.

"They're dying like rats in their homes; bodies are washing around the
streets and there's no relief in sight," Purviance said.

MANY CREEP TO SAFETY BY CABLE

At Wyoming Station, on the South Side, where the National Cash Register
Company centered its efforts at rescue, many saved their lives by
creeping on a telephone cable, a hundred feet above the flood.

At first linemen crept along the cables, carrying tow ropes to which
flat-bottomed boats were attached. When the flood became so fierce that
the boats no longer were able to make way against it, men and women
crept along the cables to safety. Others, less daring, saw darkness fall
and gave up hope of rescue.

Those willing to risk their lives in the attempt to rescue found
themselves helpless in the face of the water.

The first to seek safety by sliding along the telegraph conduits was a
man. Then came four women. The first of the women was Mrs. Luella Meyer.
She was a widow with one son, a boy in knee-breeches.

He got out on the wire and with the agility of a cat was soon across.
But Mrs. Meyers, when over the boiling torrent, swayed as though faint,
slipped and the crowd stood with bated breath.

By a lucky chance her senses came back to her so that she could grasp
one of the wires. Hand over hand she was able to pull herself slowly to
the nearest pole, where she rested before again making the trial. This
time she did not falter, but when she was picked up by the rescuers at
the farthest pole toward safety she was limp from nervous and physical
exhaustion.

Four companies of the Third Regiment, Ohio National Guard, spent the
night aiding the city officials in rescuing families in the
flood-stricken districts. Telephone and railroad service was interrupted
in every direction.

John Hadkins and James Hosay, privates of the Ohio National Guard, were
drowned while in acts of rescue. The body of an elderly woman floated
down near Wyoming Street in the afternoon, but the curren