MILLIONS LOST.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXII, Issue 4310, 29 August 1921, Page 4

MILLIONS LOST.

SCPEB FLOODS IN U.S.A.

2000 DROWNED IN TEN YEARS. .

Tlie floods in New Zealand, are made to look like a drop in the ocean compared with the. floods which every now and again devastate some part of America. Within the last ten years more than 2000 lives have been lost and millions of dollars’ worth of property destroyed by floods of American rivers. The memorable floods were :— The overflow of the Mississippi in April, 1912,' which affected scores of towns and .cities in Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansan, and Tennessee. Five hundred lives were lost and £600,000 worth of property destroyed. In March, 1913, the Ohio and its tributaries overflowed, with serious effect upon a large region and bring-' ing great ’'distress in the cities of Daytonfi Hamilton,.Zanesville, Columbus, and Cincinnati. About 700 lives were lost in all, 212 of them at Zanesville in one day and 150 at Hamilton. The proeprty loss was more than £4 - 000,000.

More than 2Q.0 persons perished in a flood which overran the'valleys of San Luis Rey River in California in January, 1916, and which ruiiic.l farmlands for miles. More than 30:) fruit farms along the river bank had to be repan'lted. The Rio Grande overflowed its banks following heavy .rains in July, 1916, and several hundred persons perished, mostly on *the Mexican side of the river. At El Paso there were 75 deaths and hundreds were made homeless.

The greatest American flood occurred When practically the entire city of Johnstown, Pa., was destroyed oh May 31; 1889, by the breaking of the Connemaugh’ dam just outside it. The toll of the dead was. never computed absolutely. About 2500 lost their lives.

A great part of the damage to Galveston, Texas, in the great hurricane of - September, .1900, was done by water blown in from the Gulf of Mexico, More than 3000 persons died and property werth £4,000,000 was destroyed.