HEAVY FLOOD TOLL

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 342, 25 January 1937, Page 5

HEAVY FLOOD TOLL

PRESIDENT’S APPEAL. CINCINNATI! CRISIS. Essential Services May Be Cut Off Completely. Press Association—'Copyright. Chicago, January 23. President Roosevelt- by proclam, ation to-day, called the nation to support the Red Cross drive to assist the sufferers, who are plagued w ith cold, hunger, snow and disease, one little town alone reporting 50 pneumonia cases. Cincinnati is the worst sufferer. The flood stage records a height of 73 feet and a seventh of the city’s area is under water. The crisis is due to-morrow, for if the water reaches 74 feet it will cut off drinking water ,gas and electricity from 700,000 persons. Portsmouth is the next worst sufferer. there having been 200 new in-

fluenza cases there to-day, straining the capacity of the four hospitals to the limit. States aff ecbed by the flood are Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana,, West Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Maryland, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Louisiana and Mississippi. Eight of these States are in the Ohio River drainage basin and have suffered most, but the water is rising in the lower Missouri Valley, compelling residents to move out. Heavy damage is reported in river-bottom fafcns, that in Arkansas alone being estimated at £2,600,000. Reformatory Prisoners. I The State reformatory at Frankfort has been flooded, and heat, or light for 24 hours. The evacuation of the 2900 men and women prisoners has begun. Twenty-four prison-; ers attempted to escape by swimming in the' icy water of the Keritucky River, but all the fugitives re : turned save one, for whom the water, was too much. Conditions in the prison are described ar horrible.’ Freezing weather at Pittsburgh’ halted the rise in the city’s three rivers saving hundreds of properties. Governor Clifford has . Placed . th'e city of Aurora, Indiana, under martial law in an effort to end the looting of the scores of homes from which people have been driven by the flood. City officials are appealing for help because they are unable to’ cope with the situation. Dayton, Ohio and other cities in the Miama Valley, protected by five consiervancy dams built at a communal cost of £6,000,000, have remained untouched by the flood, although the waters are raging all about them. They had learned the'lesson of the disasters of 1913. Congressional representatives of the Ohio River Valley States announced they would seek an immediate appropriation of £64,000,000 for food control and prevention projects already authorised by the legislature but not yet made available.