FLOODED LOUISIANA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8264, 24 May 1890, Page 5

FLOODED LOUISIANA.

Tile condition of St. James' and Asconsion parishes, La., on April 25, was deplorable. In St. James's, in the neighbourhood, of the great Nita Crevasse, everything was "flooded for miles. Hundreds of planters hj.ve lost their crops, and thousands of labourers will soon be thrown out of employment. At Grande Pointe, where there were 60 to 80 families, people escaped in skiffs. There are liable to he in St. James', St. John, and Ascension parishes, GOOO j>ersons destitute within a month. Between New Or leans and the jetties at the mouth of the M isaissippi, seven crevasses wore reported. A crevasse had also occurred in the level at lyou Lara, and the city was under water (to a depth varying from 2 to 7 feet. New Orleans itself was partially inundated by the Gulf waters driven by a gale into " Lake Fonchartrain that lies in the rear of the city. All the sparsely settled sections jtl the northeastern portion are submerged, as well as the shell roads leading to Spanish Fort and West End. In the fourth district of; the city the flood extended as far as Franklin-street; in the second and third districts all back of Claiborne-street, the houses ft sating away, Gentilly Ridge overflowed and tlie beautiful Matairie cemetery was a lake; the mound sheltering the remains of Jeff Davis rose like an island in the waste of watel ■«. A dispatch from Baton Rouge, the capital of the State, April 25, says oi lly the highest places in that parish will escape overflow. The Mississipi River is higher that at any time in the past 28 years. On the 30th the back water was reported rising so rapidly that nearly all the large plantations would be inundated and many acres of fine cane-land covered. Deer were coming out of the swamps in droves, and were being slaughtered mercilessly.