New England Flood

New England Flood

All one night, and all the next day and night rain fell on the little mountains of western New England. It ran down the mountains in rivulets, into the brooks and small rivers, into the big Connecticut River, which is the boundary of Vermont and New Hampshire; into the Merrimac in New Hampshire; into the Hoosick River, which drops to the Hudson out of Vermont and Massachusetts; into Otter Creek, which flows northwest into Lake Champlain; into the Winooski, which tumbles through the Green Mountains for 60 miles.

On its way, the water piled up with turbulent mountain fury. It swept away rows of houses in single-street hamlets. It knocked out dams and iron bridges, filled up the streets and riverside factories of larger towns; crippled telephones, telegraphs, railways. It took life.

New England is used to blizzards, but not to floods. Nothing like it had happened for a quarter-century. The steep-sided New England valleys made natural sluices for gathered waters.

Montpelier, capital of Vermont, near the junction of the Dog and Steven Rivers with the Winooski was one of the places hardest hit. Nearly 40 feet of water entered the city. First reports said 200 had died there. This figure proved 199 too large but entire blocks of Montpelier were destroyed around the foot of Capitol Hill.

Barre, Vt., reported 25 deaths, including Lieutenant Governor S. Holliston Jackson, who was stunned, then drowned, trying to reach his home.

Ludlow, Vt., home of U. S. Attorney John Garibaldi Sargent, eleven miles from Montpelier, was completely submerged. Mrs. Sargent escaped injury. The Coolidge homestead at Plymouth, Vt., was not reached by the waters but not far away, Pauline Hall, an invalid, was caught by the cloudburst and marooned in an automobile. She died.

At Thornton, N. H., Farmer James Cummings was fattening 4,000 turkeys. All were swept away. At Waterbury Vt., 28 died. At Bemis, Vt., seven houses were piled in one heap of wreckage.

At Beckett, Mass., William Ballon, owner of the reservoir above the town, sat waiting in his automobile until the dam began to crumble. Then he sped, honking, to warn his towns-fellows. All escaped but Mrs. Justine Carroll, aged 60, who hesitated fatally as mills, stores, houses, barns swept down upon her.

Otter Creek put Rutland, Vt., yards under water. One woman died of fright. Relatives of the late Governor Percival Wood Clement were marooned in their hilltop mansion. Railway trackbeds were so deranged they may not function again until next spring.

President Edward W. Beatty of the Canadian Pacific R. R. was marooned in his private car at Woodsville, N. H.

Williams College students did rescue work in the Hoosac Valley. The Dartmouth College football eleven plunged perilously by motor from Hanover, N. H. to keep an engagement with Brown University at Providence, R. I. Smith College girls rowed out of their boathouses to help Northampton, Mass.

Maine was the only New England state to escape. The milk supply of Boston and all westward mail and freight service were almost entirely cut off. Damage rode on the raging Connecticut River down through Springfield, Mass., and Hartford, Conn. Oil tanks and wharves collapsed. Sewers backed up. Typhoid threatened. Tens of thousands were homeless. A fall of snow increased their misery. The total damage for New England was estimated at $50,000,000. More than 150 died.

North of New England, the Province of Quebec reported millions in flood destruction. The rain fell there for three days steadily. Railways and shipping were disorganized in the upper Hudson Valley.

Relief. President Coolidge, through the War Department, ordered Army planes to reconnoitre from Boston, but their work was delayed by fogs. The Red Cross sent emergency men from Washington.

Flood Control. The press and residents of the Mississippi flood area expressed sympathy but could not refrain from hoping that New England, freshly conscious of what too much water can do, would help expedite Federal flood control legislation.