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MG 1 vol 2124 number 129a

HALIFAX DISASTER RECORD OFFICE
Archibald MacMechan, F.R.S.C.
Director
Halifax, N.S.

not pay any heed to her, but ran outdoors. She followed them. [Th] The sun was shining brightly and she saw the great cloud of smoke. People were all cut and she stood there looking at the hurt people and at the destruction around. She had been there "three or four minutes" before the "black rain" began to fall. She felt it on her face and hands and thought that the explosion had caused it to rain. Had heard that explosions did cause rain fall. Then she noticed that it was blackening people. There were lumps of oily soot the size of a fifty-cent piece falling. People got black in no time. There were hard lumps like cinders falling too. Went back into the school house to find her coat and hat. Couldn't see them anywhere and was just starting out again when she saw a little bit of cloth under the plaster and glass on the floor. Dragged at it and found that it was her coat. "It was a sight, but I put it on". Walked through the park but met no one there. Went to the house where she had been used to getting her dinner. Everything smashed up but no one hurt badly. She got her face and hands bathed with peroxide and tied up. While this was being done they were warned away for fear of a second explosion. Went up the lake road "with all the rest of Dartmouth". Stayed up there until about twelve o'clock. By that time they had heard so many stories of horror that no one seemed to care what happened to them. Miss C. went back to the town. There a soldier told her that the danger was over. She crossed to Halifax on the ferry at about 2 o'clock. When she got to Halifax "everybody was nailing up windows. She walked up to North St. Station and "viewed the remains". Asked a man in Policeman's uniform where the nearest point was at which she