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Hokitika Guardian, 20 July 1927, Page 2

Tiik whole world knows that the Mississippi Valley has been Hooded recently, hut the Americans themselves are only just beginning to calculate the sum total of their losses and reduce the answer to dollars and cents. The Mississippi drains nearly one-half of the whole area of the United States, and the Ohio, is the largest eastern tributary, which is particularly liable to heavy floods, drains nearly one-half of the great river basin. South of the junction of the Ohio, with the main stream the Mississippi Valley comprises about 30,003 square miles, or 10,C1'0.00() acres c.f rich alluvial soil, much of it in a high state of cultivation. This great Hood lias inundated 30 counties and parishes, with a population of over a million. The total area flooded is set down at 101.030.000 acres, of which over 10.000.000 acres produce various crops, including oi’er 22.000.000 acres in cotton alone. The cotton en p "from this district for 1920 is put down at over 1 ..AOO.OOO bales; and tin l total loss due to this year’s fiords yet remains to he calculated. The figures are so huge that the 1927 flood in the Mississippi Valley has assumed the dimensions of a great national disaster. and it is now generally agreed that the assistance of the Federal Government will be needed on a most generous scale to assist the districts direotIv affected.