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WILLIAMSPORT, HANCOCK AREA IN FLOOD PATH
Potomac River Also Leaps Banks At Harper's Ferry—No Trains Running
CREST LATE TODAY
Potomac-Edison Power Plant Shut. Down— High Water Blocks Highways
Williamsport, Md., Mar. 18. The rising Potomac river swept away several small buildings here today and forced the Potomac-Edison power plant to shut down.
The closing of the plant left Williamsport without electric current and caused the pumping plant of the Hagerstown water system to
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WILLIAMSPORT, HANCOCK IN FLOOD PATH
(Continued from Page One) stop. The power plant here had been feeding its Cumberland branch until it closed.
The river, less than two feet below its high mark of 38 feet during the Johnstown flood, smashed several small buildings along its banks.
WPA workers were pressed into service to help remove families from the stricken area. Red Cross representatives here and in Hancock prepared to give aid.
Families Desert Homes
About a dozen families deserted their canal boats and river shacks here and several families at Kemp moved out. Many summer cottages here were endangered.
The river was half-a-mile wide at this point, or about twice as wide as normal.
As the flood crest roared down from Cumberland, the river rose to a point close to its all-time high mark of 1889 and was only 18 inches below the height it reached in the 1924 flood.
Roads west and north of here were covered with several feet of water at some points. The National Highway to Hancock was reported impassable.
A group of newspapermen trying to reach Cumberland were unable to travel the flooded roads by way of Hancock or by way of nearby Pennsylvania towns.
They reported ten feet of water at the crossing over the Raystown branch of the Juanita river. At one point on the Juniata, an old stone covered bridge had collapsed and was smashed against a concrete bridge below it.