THE MISSISSIPPI FLOODS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19625, 2 May 1927, Page 8

THE MISSISSIPPI FLOODS.

The floods in the Mississippi Valley have wrought havoc so appalling that they have assumed the proportions of a national disaster. Even in so far-stretching a country as the United States the submerging thus of 10,000 square miles of occupied land is a sadly impressive event, yet tho peril and homelessness of 300,000 people mean a tragedy so great that the horror and loss involved cannot be easily realised. The appeals of various State Governors that President Coolidge should visit the devastated region, in order to become fully aware of the scope of the disaster, suggests the impossibility of visualising its terrific extent. New Zealanders can perhaps best appreciate that extent by thinking of the flooded region as equal to a tenth of this Dominion's area and of its stricken families as totalling nearly a fourth of this country's population. The disaster dwarfs most recorded experiences of destruction by overwhelming flood. To a certain extent it has been foreseen as a possibility to be dreaded. The Mississippi River, one of the largest in the world, drains an area of about one-third of the United States. Its control below the influx of the Missouri has long been recognised as an extremely difficult problem. Nearly a century ago the American Congress gave attention to the problem, partly with a view to the great waterway's better service to commerce, but partly also in the hope of minimising the danger created by spring and summer floods. This peril had serious thought, indeed, more than two hundred years age, when the first of the embankments constructed for the protection of the rich lands near New Orleans was made by French engineers. As this system of embankments grew, settle ment steadily increased northward from the city, but this progress has never been wholly free from anxiety. The great quantities of silt brought down by the confluent streams thai form the lower Mississippi have led to heavy erosion of its banks and the presence of marshy ground at many points along its course. Every five or six years the risk of heavy floods has had to be faced," in spite of all engineering precautions, but it was hoped that the means adopted at the beginning of this century and virtually perfected in 1909 would suffice for all oi'dinary needs. This year.'s swelling of the torrent, through climatic changes suddenly loosing the snow-waters of the remote uplands, has evidently exceeded anticipations, with very sorrowful consequences. There will be world-wide sympathy for the sufferers by the disaster, and in this sympathy New Zealand's people join unfeignedly.