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Untold Disaster

Untold Disaster image
Parent Issue
Day
2
Month
April
Year
1897
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

Greenville. Miss., March 31.- The flood situation culminated yesterday in unold disaster to the great Yazoo delta región. By 9 o'clock yesterday mornng three additionaol breaks were reported. One at Stead's Landing, Bolívar county, near Australia and thirty miles north of Rosedale, occurred at 4 p. m. Monday. At 3 o'clock yesterday morning tbe levee at Mound Landing, ust fifteen miles above this city, gave way, and at 9 a. m. news was received oí a third break at Stopp's landing, seven miles north of the Mound break. The break at Stead's Landing is now 2,000 :eet wide and the ast breaks at Mound and Stopp Landings are now over 200 vards wide, while the break below here on Lake Lee is about 600 yards wide. These four crevasses are hourly pouring their torrents into the bottom formed ay the Yazoo river hills on the east and the Mississippi river bank on the west. Thousands of flood-bound people are caught and penned in between the three Bolivar county breaks, and no communication can be had with them. Refugees coming into the city from thecountry this side of the Mound break report many families in peril of their lives on the other side of the crevasses, as there is only seven miles of country between them and Stead's, and it is next to impossible for all to escape. Yesterday morning a movement to build a protection levee was started. but abandoned as a useless waste of labor, as the water would be here before it could be completed. Two hundred and flfty towns and villages will be under waterinthree days, and thousands cf families will be homeless. Every lake and strcam isout of its banks and literally filled wlth bodies of drowned animáis. Many thousands of horses, mules and cattle are beingswept away. Homes and property are gladly abandoned in the mad rush to preserve Hfe It is impossible to estímate the amount of destruction in dollars and cents. Every town and village along the Yazco and Miss?ippi Valley railroad is full of homeless refugees. and half naked men, women and children are grouped in squads along the levees in the vicinity of the breaks. In the next two days two-thirds of this entire valley will be one waste of water, from the banks of the Mississippi eastward to the Yazoo river. It ís a thickly populated región and has fully 100,000 inhabltants. Drowned ín Chartiers Creek. Pittsburg, Maren 29. - At McKee's Roeks, a suburb of this city, yesterday Willie DeWalt, 5 years old, and Elmer, his brother, 10 years cf age. were carried off by the swollen Chartiers creek to almcst instant death. The little fellows en their way home from Sunday school stopped to play on the creek bank. and Willie slipped down the embankment into the water and was carried rapidly down stream. He called piteously for help. and El"mer. though unable to swim. heroically made an effort to save his brother. but was carried off by the swift current and both boys were drowned. The Irowning was so quickly accomplished that some men at the electric light power house near by who saw the accident could not reach the scène in time to be of service. '

Article

Subjects
Old News
Ann Arbor Democrat