The Flood in the Mississippi Valley
FLOOD OF THE MISSISSIPPI INEVITABLE—SOUTHEASTERN MISSOURI THREATENED—BAD BREAK IN LEVEE AT HICKMAN—STRENGTHENING THE LEVEES—MEMPHIS IN PERIL—DANGER ALL ALONG THE LINE—RIVER AT RECORD STAGE—RISING HOPE—A NATIONAL PROBLEM.
On March 30th the Mississippi Valley was facing one of the worst floods in its history, and the steady advance of the river threatened a large section of country. The breaking of the levees along the Mississippi itself, an inevitable result of the great floods in tributary streams, had already begun. The district below St. Louis was a foot or more above the flood stage, although the big rise had not arrived. Preparations were being made to withstand a flood equal to that of 1912. Although the levees had been made higher in some places, it was not to be expected that they would be strong enough all along the river from St. Louis to the sea. In the lower sections of the Mississippi Valley it was feared there might be a repetition of the recent disasters in Ohio.
At Charleston, Missouri, on March 30th, the flood conditions were growing more acute every hour. The city was filled with refugees from all directions. Belmont and Crosno, on the Mississippi River, south of Charleston, were submerged, and the residents fleeing to places of safety.
East Prairie, Anniston and Wyatt, on the Cotton Belt Railroad, were shut off from the world and obliged to receive mail through the Charleston post-office.
SOUTHEASTERN MISSOURI THREATENED
The St. Louis and San Francisco embankment between Kilbourne and Kewanee, in the extreme southeastern part of Missouri, was cut early on April 5th at the direction of the railway officials to prevent the flooding of a large section of the track if the levee should break at a weak spot. The gap permitted the drainage of a large volume of overflow.
One of the most thrilling of the stories was brought by Captain S. A. Martin and Captain H. A. Jamieson, of the Sixth Missouri National Guard. They were rescued in a launch from a section of levee which broke away at Bird Point, Missouri.
Thirty-six of their men, they said, were on the levee section, which was two hundred yards long and ten feet wide, and was floating down the Mississippi.
Commander McMunn, of the Naval Reserves, at once arranged for a steam launch and started out to rescue the Missouri soldiers. There was a swift current in the river, and the safety of the men caused their commanding officer much anxiety.
BAD BREAK IN LEVEE AT HICKMAN
The levee at Hickman, Kentucky, broke shortly after midday on April 4th, after a night of continuous rain, followed by a driving up-stream wind, flooding the factory district but causing no loss of life.
The break, however, did not relieve the river situation at other points, because the water running through the break there was turned back to the main stream by the Government or Reelfoot levee, two miles below the town. The section flooded was occupied by several factories and the homes of hundreds of workmen.
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 shore 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 anticipate 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 repetition of this, the railroads and shippers 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 crevasses, 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 crevasses. 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 assemble 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 crevasses 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 destitute condition, local relief committees from New Orleans rushed a large quantity 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 principally 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.