Ossman said nineteen bodies had been taken to his undertaking rooms and that he has been asked to be prepared to care for sixty-nine other bodies. He said he counted fully two hundred bodies in wreckage on West Park Avenue.
Members of searching parties who were able to explore the west side of the city, south of Broad Street, for the first time reported that that section was a scene of vast desolation for a great area, much of it being still under water.
The names of more than a half hundred persons were placed under the caption "known dead," while the list of probable dead was too great to be collated at that time. The number of missing and unaccounted for, it was said, would reach far into the hundreds.
An Associated Press operator, who was marooned for hours in the flood after it broke early Tuesday, reached the Columbus office Thursday after having traveled by a circuitous route covering more than forty-five miles in order to get into the main portion of the city.
He saw more than a score of bodies washed through the flood, and said that house after house was carried away in the flood. Many of the small frame cottages were wrenched to pieces by the currents and their occupants thrown into the water to be seen no more.
It was believed that many bodies would be found at the Sandusky Street bridge or lodged against such part of it as was left in the river at that point. Further exploration of that part of the west side was begun Thursday afternoon.
Because she had no home after she was rescued from the flood district, Miss Florence P. Shaner and William G. Wahlenmaier were married. They had intended being married in May. The girl was rescued by Wahlenmaier. Her mother was drowned and their home swept away.
Other men who had ventured into the flood district told corresponding stories of awful loss of life. To add to the horrors of the situation reports reached the State House that the buildings in the flood-swept district were being looted by men in rowboats. To meet this emergency and to better patrol the west side, which is under martial law, Governor Cox ordered Troop B of the National Guard to patrol the ruined section of the city. It was believed the cavalrymen could cover more territory than foot soldiers.