The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado Part 36

STRENGTHENING THE LEVEES

All along the Mississippi men were at work strengthening the levees. The Government on March 29th prepared to rush 20,000 empty sacks to Modoc and other weak points in the St. Francis levee district. They were loaded on barges belonging to the Tennessee Construction Company of Memphis. The boats, which were from one hundred and forty to one hundred and sixty feet in length, were used to house Arkansas convicts sent from Little Rock to do levee work.

This trouble was felt in many places when the rising tide threatened life and property. Industrial anarchy and chaos reigned, and overwhelming, paralyzing fear seized the people.

MEMPHIS IN PERIL

On April 5th the protection levee along Bayou Gayoso gave way, flooding a small residence section in the northern portion of Memphis.

The break occurred at a point just west of the St. Joseph Hospital, and within an hour several blocks of houses in the poorer section of the city had been flooded.

Before night a section of the city three blocks wide and six to nine blocks long was covered with from three to six feet of water.

DANGER ALL ALONG THE LINE

The banks at Hopefield Point early began to cave in. More than an acre slid into the water just south of the point. The main sh.o.r.e line began to crumble, indicating that the oncoming high water would wash more than half the old point away.

Gangs of men were busy working the north levee in Helena, Arkansas.

Major T. C. Dabney, of the upper Mississippi levee district, sent out crews to raise the lowest places. Major Dabney did not antic.i.p.ate great trouble, but said he believes in being prepared.

A break in the levee in Holly Bush and Mounds, Arkansas, in April, 1912, put all the west bank lines out of commission for ten days. Miles of track were washed away. Fearing a repet.i.tion of this, the railroads and s.h.i.+ppers agreed to operate a daily boat between Memphis and Helena.

The first break in the main Mississippi River levee occurred on April 8th on the Arkansas side, just south of Memphis. Three counties were flooded by water which poured through a big cut in the wall. No loss of life was reported, the inhabitants having been warned in time that the levee was weakening.

RIVER AT RECORD STAGE

It was predicted that the Mississippi River from Vicksburg, Mississippi, to the Gulf would go two feet higher than the highest stage reported in 1912, according to a flood warning issued by Captain C. O. Sherrill, United States Army Engineer, on April 2d.

In 1912 the maximum of the river gauge at New Orleans showed nearly twenty-two feet. At that height, and even with the tide reduced by several immense creva.s.ses, waters came over the New Orleans levees at a number of places, despite the fact that they were topped with several rows of sandbags.

Captain Sherrill ascribed the unprecedented flood entirely to the rains in the river bed caused by last year's creva.s.ses. He issued orders to have the levees from Vicksburg to Fort Jackson on both sides raised above the flood stage of 1912, and men and material were sent to all points along the river to combat the expected high water in the lower Mississippi.

Colonel Townsend, head of the Mississippi River Commission, ten days previously predicted a stage as high as that of 1912, and sent out warnings to all engineers in the valley. It was acting upon his advice that Captain Sherrill began to a.s.semble barges, quarter boats, bags, material and tools to be sent to points between Vicksburg and New Orleans for possible emergencies.

In explaining why the river from Vicksburg to the mouth of the river would be higher than last year, Captain Sherrill pointed to the fact that creva.s.ses both below and above the stretch in 1912 lowered the river there, whereas upon the present rise, with levees expected to confine the water, the crest naturally would be higher. Because of this fact the brunt of the high water was expected to strike that stretch, and any possible trouble to be looked for could be expected there, although the levees between Old River and Baton Rouge might also be in danger.

RISING HOPE

The hopes of the people began to rise as they learned that the entire Mississippi levee system was to be made two feet higher than the record of the flood last year. It was expected the work would be completed before the crest of the Ohio River flood reached the lower Mississippi Valley.

On receipt of reports that two hundred families had been driven from their homes in the lowlands of the Atchafalaya River, near Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, owing to high water, and were in a dest.i.tute condition, local relief committees from New Orleans rushed a large quant.i.ty of supplies to that section.

The appeal said if immediate aid was not received it was feared many would die of starvation. Inhabitants of the district were princ.i.p.ally foreigners, who had reclaimed a part of their truck farms, which were destroyed by last year's flood. Their newly planted crops were abandoned.

A NATIONAL PROBLEM

It is a curious fact that the Mississippi has done as much to kill the old doctrine of states' rights as any other influence. For instance, Louisiana, after spending thirty millions of dollars on river problems, was quite willing to concede that the Mississippi was a national affair and that Federal aid was altogether desirable. But it is plain that the resources of the individual states as well as of the nation must be utilized for the prevention of floods. This is a task so vast that a united effort is required.

CHAPTER x.x.x

DAMAGE TO TRANSPORTATION, MAIL AND TELEGRAPH FACILITIES

GREAT DAMAGE AND WASHOUTS--TICKETS SOLD SUBJECT TO DELAY--REPORTS OF TRACKS GONE--PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD A HEAVY SUFFERER--HEAVY LOSS ON BALTIMORE AND OHIO--ESTIMATED DAMAGE--FLOOD PLAYED HAVOC WITH MAILS--GENERAL PROSTRATION OF TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE WIRES.

Only one railroad was working between New York and Chicago on the night of Wednesday, March 26th. That was the Lake Sh.o.r.e and Michigan Southern.

Over the line were speeding the trains of the New York Central and allied lines, the Pennsylvania, the Baltimore and Ohio, and the Erie, pa.s.senger and freight service combined. Many trains were derailed in flooded territories.

The following bulletin was given out at the office of W. C. Brown, president of the New York Central Railroad:

"The main line of the Lake Sh.o.r.e and Michigan Southern Railway to Chicago is not affected to any extent by the heavy rains, and trains are departing practically on schedule between New York and Chicago.

"The situation south of the Lake Sh.o.r.e line, however, is serious and no trains are being started out of Cleveland for Indianapolis, St. Louis, Dayton, Cincinnati and intermediate points. Through pa.s.sengers for Columbus are being transferred at New London, Ohio, and handled through to destination."

TICKETS SOLD SUBJECT TO DELAY

Trains went out of the Grand Central Station of New York just the same, but no through western ticket was sold unless the purchaser was informed that it must be accepted subject to delay. When the Southwestern Limited left at four o'clock its ordinary Cincinnati sleeper had been renamed the Columbus sleeper and the Cincinnati man had to take a chance. When its other western expresses went forth the other Ohio, St. Louis and southern sleepers were all running on conditions.

REPORTS OF TRACKS GONE

The Erie Railroad west of Olean, the main line, was out of commission.

According to reports received, there were at least one hundred and twenty washouts along that line farther west, with many bridges gone.

Some of the washouts were a mile in length and with the tracks had gone the roadbed. Twenty trains bound west were stalled at various points, but all were in big towns, so the pa.s.sengers did not suffer.

PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD A HEAVY SUFFERER

The Pennsylvania Railroad suffered more damage than any other. The service west of Pittsburgh was badly crippled. All through trains from the East to points on the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway west of Pittsburgh were temporarily discontinued.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RAILROAD MAP OF THE FLOODED DISTRICT IN INDIANA, OHIO AND WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA]

On the lines East, in the vicinity of Pittsburgh, Oil City, Erie and Buffalo, serious washouts developed, aggregating in length on the Allegheny Division, about two thousand five hundred feet of main track.

Benjamin McKeen, general manager of the Pennsylvania Railroad's lines, west of Pittsburgh, informed Broad Street Station, Philadelphia, on Thursday, that all lines were blocked on both pa.s.senger and freight service, except between Pittsburgh and Cleveland by way of Alliance.

"We are gradually getting our lines of communication established so that our information seems a little more definite, although the lines are working very unsatisfactorily yet at many points.