p. 84 | THE STORM UNIVERSAL by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Feb 17, 1881

THE STORM UNIVERSAL.

By Editor

ALTHOUGH the first, California is by no means the only, State which has been visited this season by unusually severe storms and high water. During the last week reports of falling rain and overflowing rivers have been received from nearly all quarters of the United States. We have room here, however, to notice the condition of the flooded districts in only a few localities, as reported the 12th inst.

At Washington the doings of Congress were quite overshadowed by the flood in the Potomac, caused by heavy rains and the breaking up of ice in the upper part of the river. The historic Long Bridge was entirely submerged and three of its spans carried away. In the Baltimore and Potomac railroad depot the water stood two feet high, and trains from the north over that road were obliged to stop several squares from the depot, and passengers were transferred in coaches and wagons, through the water which was from two to four feet deep. Near Sixth and B streets, five Ninth-street cars were abandoned, the drivers taking the money-boxes under their arms and riding the horses. That part of the city lying south of Pennsylvania avenue was entirely submerged, and communication with South Washington by means of street-cars was suspended.

Dispatches from various points on the Hudson, Delaware and Schuylkill rivers also report serious damage from ice gorges. The meadows at Hoboken, N. J., were flooded and it is estimated that five hundred families were without shelter. At New Orleans a tract of five square miles, containing about 50,000 inhabitants, was inundated. In many places the water was three or four feet deep, and in low, one-story houses everything was washed out. Ten thousand persons were supplied with cooked food by the Relief Committee. A funeral procession in boats was one of the novel features of the occasion.

At Toledo, Ohio, a fleet of six grain-laden vessels, lying in winter quarters at the Wabash elevator, was swept down the river and lodged in the ice two miles below the city. On Summit street the water rose to the height of two feet, and the basements of the wholesale stores were flooded and entire stocks ruined. The loss is estimated at no less than half a million dollars.

Scores of dispatches received at Chicago, reported storms, overflows, crevasses, breaking up of ice, rising rivers and heavy snows, which delayed trains in every direction.

Not only in this country but across the ocean has the past winter been unexpectedly severe, as will appear from Eld. Loughborough's report from England given on another page. Surely this is the time when are being fulfilled the words of Scripture, “Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth.” Luke 21:26