FRANTIC RUSH FOR LIFE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21118, 27 February 1932, Page 3 (Supplement)

FRANTIC RUSH FOR LIFE.

TERRORS OF BURST DAM. DEVASTATION AND MISERY. Roped to chimney-pots, mothers clung tightly to their children during a night of terror following the bursting of a huge dam in the Mississippi country,:.according to a vivid story told a few weeks ago by Mr. R. E. Williams, Mayor of Charleston. Speaking of the misery and devastation caused by the letting loose of a 10ft. high wall of water Mr. Williams, whose town stands on the edge of the flooded area, said that over 400 square riiiles of territory, including 12 towns and hundreds of villages were under water, and. in many cases the floods were rising. Convicts from a flooded prison were escorted from the gaol to assist in the rescue work. Thousands of people spent the night on the roof-tops and many in the branches of trees. The mothers who took refuge on the house-tops wrapped their children in blankets or anything else that could be snatched from the house in time.

" Hundreds of people are pouring into Charleston from various places, and the whole town is devoting itself to giving them food and clothing," said Mr. Williams. " Most of them have had to run for their lives before the oncoming flpod, which was just like a great tidal wave after the Grassy Lake dam collapsed in the dark hours of the morning. " The roar of the bursting dam was .heard for miles, and woke people from their beds. ' Run for your lives. The dam has burst,' shouted people to their neighbours as they rushed from their homes.

" Children were pulled from their beds and were hastily wrapped in a blanket or anything that was handy, and hurried away to safety. Some families were already awake, fearing in view of the recent" heavy floods that the dam might burst any time. These had their cars with food and clothing all ready to dash away. Other folks were not so lucky, and hundreds of them made a dash for high railway embankments, where they spent, the rest of the night, shivering and watching the floods rise. " Ambulance parties were hurried in every direction to form temporary camps for the homeless. > Some of the ambulance parties themselves were cut off by the floods. Many hundreds of families brought out ladders and climbed to the tops of their houses, ropes being used in some cases to secure them to the chimney-pots. In some places fitcs were lit on high ground as signal flares to warn others of the approach of the floods/'