FLOODS & FIRES NEW MENACE IN CANADA

Grey River Argus, 3 June 1948, Page 5

FLOODS & FIRES NEW MENACE IN CANADA

BRITISH COLUMBIA RIVER LEVEL DROPS I • ‘(gee. 9.0) OTTAWA, June 1. White British Columbia battled the huge floods to-day, Ontario residents were fighting forest fires, which at present cover fifty thousand acres. The flames are roaring into the heart of the windswept Missisagi, Chapleau and Nipigon districts, where trees are tinder dry. Officials said the fires are so large and are moving so fast that it is difficult to get around them. The fire area’ is in central southern Ontario, just north of Lake Superior. In Fraser Valley (British Columbia) the battered dykes held to-day, and the Fraser River level dropped in the promise of relief for the flood devastated areas. The damage is tentatively estimated at twenty million dollars.

Mass Evacuation in Oregon Along Columbia River . NEW YORK, June 1. Mass evacuation along 120 miles of the lower Columbia river was under way to-day as the crest of the flood approached Portland (Oregon) which is already partly flooded. Army engineers, fighting to hold the dykes, ordered the entire lower Columbia river to be closed to navigation, least the wake of ships might send the flood waters crashing through.

Muddy waters are still preventing determination of how many died in Vanport, but Army engineers estimate the material- loss at 27,000,000 dollars. The Columbia river is in a flooded state for 750 miles and the crest is expected to reach Portland, by tonight or tomorrow morning. Portlands’ only railway station is already under water. It is estimated that the flood damage in Oregon, Washington. Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia, already totals at least 7,500,000 dollars, with 26 persons known to be dead, and 90,000 homeless.