FLOOD DISASTERS
TERRIBLE SCENES.
IN MISSISSIPI VALLEY
MANY GALLANT RESCUES
SAN FRANCISCO, May 2. Unparalleled scenes of desolation have resulted from the record-breaking flood disasters which have occurred in a widespread area of the United States and in Mississippi and Arkansas aloneover 9000 square miles of fertile-lands were laid waste by the great valley flood. In the Mississippi delta over 200 lives were lost, while 15 negro women, marooned in a house at Winterville, five miles north of Greenville, Mississippi, were drowned, as it was impossible to send aid to them in time. Hundreds of boats were requisitioned to take out the marooned, many of whom had been without food or water for 24 hours or longer. The floods continued to spread at a rapid rate, and additional thousands were rendered homeless, with loss of crops, livestock and property steadily mounting into millions of dollars’ loss. On the Red River, in South-western Arkansas, another levee gave way, causing the inundation of an additional 20,000 acres and driving several hundreds from their homes. A report from New Orleans stated that one of the greatest peace-time armies in the history of the world was engaged in deadly combat with the greatest flood the Mississippi Valley had ever known. The Fatherof Waters, ever ready to burst the bounds that hold his angry flood within earthen embankments, got the upper hand of the army in several States, and wreaked havoc with towns, villages and plantations. All along the great river from New Orleans, in Louisiana, to Vicksburg, in Massachusetts, the army was massed, and while many of the army were equipped with shotguns, the greater number had for their weapons shovels, sandbags, wheelbarrows, pile drivers and piles of timber. In Greenville district eight persons, including two small children, who clung for nearly an hour to willows after their gasoline launch burned, were rescued under dramatic circumstances by a Government boat and taken to Greenville. Marooned several days on a levee at the head of a narrow drainage canal which extends from the Mississippi into the village of Wayside, in Mississippi, 500 person’s were taken off by the steamer Wabash, which tore away its guard rails in negotiating the channels to make heroic rescue. Three of the refugees died before succour arrived, and another was carried to hospital dying from a snake bite. All were hungry and thirsty, with virtually no food supplies and no water except that dipped from the raging flood. Most of the refugees and all of the dead were negroes. On the night of their providential rescue they sang plantation melodies and old-time religious songs as they joyfully thronged the decks of the Wabash, which was attracted to Wayside by the report of guns fired by the refugees to hail the passing vessel. With a roar that could be heax-d nearly a mile, a crevasse opened in the levee at Junius Plantation, 43 miles below Nexv Orleans, the break being caused by the steamship Inspector, which ran into the levee on the previous day and was pulled away on the following morning. Instantly the waters began to roar' through the gap, and then the levees broke. There were approximately 2400 people living in the district which was inundated by this break, but they were all rescued by small boats. Because of the critical condition along the river, prayers were said in ail Catholic churches to Our Lady of Prompt Succour, to whom the Ursuline nuns prayed before Andrew Jackson won the battle of New Orleans. The priest recited the Litany of the Blessed Virgin, while the congregations answered them in each instance. Many Protestant clergymen spoke about the river floods, and prayers were offered in the different churches for relief. A further report from -Wayside stated that the refugees had to exist in a region shared by innumerable snakes, which added to their perils. One man pulled on hia high boots to find them occupied by water mocassins which bit him. DESCRIBES LEVEE CRASHING. Describing the strange scene of the steamship Inspector crashing into the levee at the Junius plantation, the nose of the tanker being imbedded in the break, in trying with its bulk to prevent the river widening and sending a deluge into the valley, William C. Gabon, an eye-witness, gave this account of the break: “We were passing in an automobile, and saw a ship in front of the levee at the Junius plantation. The ship was coming downstream. All of a sudden we looked ahead and saw the levee give way. It went like' a shot. There were no persons on the levee that we could see. The break seemed about 30ft wide. The ship swung around and went into the break to try and stop the water. “Anchors were dropped to try and keep the ship from moving with the current, which seemed exceedingly strong. The current seemed to swing the ship, and then its engine started and it moved farther in and partly closed the gap but the water was running past both sides of the ship and rapidly widening the crevasse. The steamer whistles were screaming for help. We drove to the nearest place to send’ a message for help.” A report from Memphis, Tennessee, said 1500 refugees had been taken off the main levee at Greenville by the steamboat Tolliuger and transported to Vicksburg. The Tolliuger towed four steel barges, one covered barge being filled with women and children. Twelve
hundred refugees were quartered in the courthouse at Memphis, and 1100 more were billeted in two cotton warehouses. A fleet of small boats wes needed to convey them along the river to safety. Describing the scene of desolation in
the city, the message stated that people were clinging to the tops of embankments, housetops and trees, awaiting rescue. Sanitary conditions were reported bad in the city, following the failure of the water system, and river water had to be used for drinking purposes. Spectacular work was performed by aeroplanes flying over flooded districts and warning people who were in danger, and in many instances these Government airships carried rescuing parties and food to the starving marooned victims.
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Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3644, 28 May 1927, Page 4
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1,024FLOOD DISASTERS Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3644, 28 May 1927, Page 4
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