HEAT WAVE IN U.S.A.

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 10, 11 July 1936, Page 9

HEAT WAVE IN U.S.A.

DEATH ROLL OF 215

IMMENSE DROUGHT DAMAGE

WHEAT PRICES RISE

United Press Association—By Electric Tete-

Eraph—Copyright.

CHICAGO, July 9.

Total deaths as a result of the heat rose to 215 today as searing temperatures spread eastwards. Scattered showers, which were heaviest at Efiingham (Illinois), where the rain totalled 2.42 inches, were tantalisingly ineffective. Drought damage in the western prairies of the United States is estimated to have reached 200,000,000 dollars. Forest fires continue to break out.

Wheat rose at Winnipeg by 1 to 1 1-8 cents, and at Chicago finished 3-8 to 1 5-8 cents above yesterday's finish. Scorching heat borne out of the parched drought areas in the Middle West shattered all existing records in New York. Reflected heat from Times Square pavements pent the mercury up to 115 degrees Fahr. In the'manmade canyons of the financial district heat waves blurred the sight of buildings. Five died from the heat and four boys were drowned. The whole eastern section of the United States sweltered. So intense was the heat that drawbridges in the States of New York and New Jersey buckled in expanding' beyond the designed limits. The only relief reported was of dubious value: A lightning storm of tropical fury caused damage amounting to 1,000,000 dollars in southern New England. ' ' RURAL RELIEF. -. The Government declared today a moratorium of one year on rural rehabilitation loans aggregating 7,000,000 dollars to 30,000 farmers in 268 droughtstricken counties, and at the same time extended the Works Progress Administration's emergency job programme to care for 20,000 sufferers in seven southern States —North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, Georgia, and Alabama. ■ Officials stated that President Roosevelt is preparing to submit to next Congress a long-range programme to convert the worst areas' of the parched wheat country "dust bowl" to pasture land and to settle many of the present inhabitants elsewhere. Dr. Rexford Tugwell announced that he would tour the stricken north-west before completing arrangements for grants to sufferers. . Three thousand W.P.A. workers are about to begin the construction of a lake of 20 square miles, to be known as the Lac Qui Pairle project, in Minnesota. _ The National Resources • Committee, headed by Mr. H. L. Ickes, Secretary of the Interior, reported that the Great Plains area can be prevented from becoming a desert if a comprehensive soil programme is fully instituted within a decade. Big-game animals in Government national parks—bison, elks, antelopes, and deer —are threatened, with lack >of hay next winter owing to the parched pasturage. . ...'...