WEATHER: The Tempest

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Probably the most frightening effect of the flood occurred at Putnam, Conn, (pop. 8,200), where the flood destroyed a magnesium plant, setting off white-hot fires. All through one terrifying night, the citizens of Putnam cringed in their homes while hundreds of barrels of burning magnesium floated in the streets, sending geysers of white-hot metal 250 feet in the air.

In his vacation headquarters at Fraser, Colo., President Eisenhower declared six Eastern states disaster areas and ordered federal relief. Swarms of helicopters and Army amphibious "ducks" were pressed into action. In one dramatic helicopter rescue, a fleet of whirlybirds rescued 235 passengers on a stranded Lackawanna Railroad train in the Poconos.

This week, as the Northeast mopped up, the 1955 flood went down in Weather Bureau records as one of the most disastrous in U.S. history. The toll of dead and missing passed 250 and was still rising (the worst on record: the Johnstown Flood of 1889, when more than 2,000 perished), and last week's damage was estimated at well over $1.5 billion.