…I went to the window and looked out on a scene of utter desolation. The water, from eighteen to thirty feet deep, had spread like a lake all over the better part of town in the direction of the railroad bridge. Only one dwelling house, that of Dr. Lowman, on the corner of the park remained. On the left several large buildings, which stood on Main Street, had escaped being protected by our large stone church, which had not only resisted the force of the flood, but parted the waters so as to save the bank building, the Presbyterian and Christian Churches and Alma Hall… But in the direct course of the flood, the large market house, the Episcopal Church, the large brick residence of Dr. L. T. Beam, and hundreds of others, showed no sighs of ever having existed. The very trees in the park had been swept away, and an indescribable scene of desolation spread in every direction. To add to the general horror, the Catholic Church, to the east of us, burned fiercely, and the mass of debris, accumulated at the railroad bridge, had caught fire, and cast a lurid light over the devastated city, otherwise shrouded in gloom….