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SOURCE: The Evening Telegram - New York, Monday, January 5, 1885

                               BIG BOOMS ICE JAM
                                 _____________
                                 
                          The Gorge Upward of Five Miles
                                   In Length
                                   _________
                                   
                             PANIC IN GRAND RAPIDS 
                                   _________
                                   
                          Fears That Great Loss of Life
                                 May Take Place
                                   __________
                                   
                     Special Dispatch to the Evening Telegram
                   Grand Rapids, Mich., Jan. 5 -- On Friday night
                 last, an ice jam began at Big Boom, eight miles
                 above Grand Haven, and about midnight on Satur-
                 day night there was a solid gorge of ice vary-
                 ing from four to fifteen feet in thickness to
                 this city.  The water began settling back, and
                 the rapids and dam are now one solid mass of 
                 ice and nearly level from the Lake Shore rail-
                 road bridge below the city to Big Bend, five
                 miles north of the city, and the water is rising
                 at the rate of a foot an hour.  Yesterday after-
                 noon the ice moved on the rapids and piled up
                 fifteen feet high below the city.
                              WATER RISING RAPIDLY
                   The water has risen very rapidly and now floods
                 all the sewers, also basements along Canal street.
                 The sidewalks along the entire length of the street
                 are piled with goods.  The flouring mills are
                 flooded and their contents have been removed.  The
                 jail basement is flooded and the prisoners were
                 compelled to go to bed to keep warm because the
                 furnace cannot be run.  The city was in total 
                 darkness last night.  The water is now as high as
                 the time of the great log jam in July, 1883, and 
                 another foot rise will flood the whole north end
                 of the city on the west side.  The panic-stricken
                 people are rapidly moving out of their houses in
                 that locality.  The police force has been doubled
                 to secure safety to property and life.
                                 
                               
                   
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