The government relief boat "Scioto," in command of Lieutenant Hight, U. S. A., towed a barge load of provisions into Lawrenceburg, Indiana, on March 31st, to find but forty of the five thousand homes there not under water. When the boat proceeded to Aurora conditions were found almost as bad, with but five hundred homes free from the reach of the all-engulfing waters.
The south levee at Lawrenceburg broke at 2.50 P. M. on March 29th. A wall of water poured through the opening and went raging through the center of the town, tearing up all before it. Houses were crushed like eggshells and the wreckage was carried four miles along the Miami to the fill on the main line of the Big Four. The break came when it was least expected, but the residents were warned to leave town, and no lives were lost. Water stood six feet deep in the streets.
JEFFERSONVILLE AND EVANSVILLE FLOODED
At Jeffersonville two hundred convicts from the Indiana Reformatory worked for nearly two days on the levee during the flood week, and through their work it was possible to save the town from the Ohio River.
A committee of citizens of Jeffersonville perfected arrangements for a banquet to be given in honor of the gray-garbed men who saved their homes. The entertainment was planned for April 13th, at a cost of $1,000.
Evansville citizens were alarmed at the continued rise of the Ohio, and all movables were carried to places of certain safety. On April 1st, the Government took charge of the flood situation. Captain W. K. Naylor hastened to commandeer steamboats and patrol the river to pick up flood sufferers. Mayor Charles Heilman left for Mount Vernon to take charge of rescue work in that section.
Thirty thousand persons within a radius of ninety miles around Mount Vernon were calling for help on April 4th.
The Howell levee, protecting two hundred families in Ingleside, between Evansville and Howell, gave way and the Ingleside district was inundated with depths of from six to ten feet. Minutemen had been posted all long the dangerous dike, and when the water began to pour over the top an alarm was sounded and all escaped.
SHAWNEETOWN SUBMERGED
Shawneetown, Illinois, was entirely cut off from the outside world. On the night of April 1st, the water in the streets was twelve feet deep. After another twenty-four hours, all that was left of Shawneetown were the few substantial brick and stone buildings behind the main levee, and they were considered unsafe. Less than one hundred persons remained in the former town of three thousand, and they were perched in the second and third stories of Main Street buildings, structures on the highest street in the town. A strong wind completed the destruction begun by the opening of the levee.