MISSISSIPPI FLOODS

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 May 1927, Page 6

MISSISSIPPI FLOODS

NKW ORLEANS SAFE?

'Australian A N.Z. (table Assn.)

NEW YORK. A Lav 12

News from New Orleans states that while no definite break has yet. occurred in the Bayou Des Glaizes Levee (which has been feared since Wednesday), water to-day began pouring over the dyke levels, thus indicating that the Levee can hold possibly for only .four hours. The first break in the Levee system guarding Central and Southern Louisiana has occurred. This was the embankment at Lavon Rouge, which crumpled near Cotton Port, releasing part of the inland sea which had spread over North-Eastern Louisiana. The effect of this break upon the city of New Orleans has been problematical. Although the ('ity Meteorological Bureau has renewed its warning that every precautionary measure should be taken, the city guards were withdrawn from the levees in the neighbourhood of the break, and the work of raising the tops of the embankments was halted.

60,001) MORE HOMELESS

NEW YORK. May 13

A message from Baton Rouge (Louisiana) says that as the result of the breaking levee at Morsauville by the Mississippi flood, sixty thousand more people were driven from their homes, and a million acres are threatened with inundation. LEVEES GIVE WAY. NEW YORK, May 13. News from New Orleans states that flood waters clipped a great section of the Bayou Des Glaises levee at Bordelonville, the heart of the big bend. Engineers and relief workers declare that th? crevasse is already 150 feet wide. The levee is gradually cracking eastward, dooming the socalled sugar bowl lands of Louisiana where 150,000 people lived. Property worth over ten million dollars lies in the path of the flood. The pent-up waters are also streaming through a series of crevasses between the Cottonport and Bordelonville ureas, ranging to a width from twenty to seven hundred feet. Moreauville, a small town midway between Cottonport and Bordelonville, is under water, but no loss of life is expected. All the immediate affected area has been cleared of women and children. Farmers themselves manned the levees until the uselessness of the task became apparent. The engineers predict the flood will flow southward at the rate of fifteen to twenty miles a day. Meantime, reports from the Tensas basis reveal a serious refugee problem throughout. Louisiana bottomlands. A wireless message from Jonesville states that the water there lias risen thirteen inches in the last 24 hours. Near Acme, a large number ol women and children were on flatboats, and without food. These were rescued. A member of the Governors stall immediately notified the Red Cross of the urgent need for food and tents m the flooded parishes.