A TOWN ENGULFED

Taranaki Daily News, 23 June 1927, Page 11

A TOWN ENGULFED

U.S. FLOOD HORROR. CURRENT S 3 MILES AN HOUR. Fan Francisco, May 21. The Mississippi disaster, continuing its menacing attitude to the hundreds of thousands of resi nts of its unhappy valley, wrecked havoc in Louisiana when a raging torrent of muddy flood waters in six hours completely inundated Melville, a town of 1000 inhabitants on the west bank of the Atchafalya River, approximately 120 miles northwest of New Orleans, under eight to ten feet of water. Pouring through a crevasse 2500 feet wide, with a rashing current of thirty miles an hour water twenty feet deep tossed about and demolised thirty-five negroes trying to wade through the surging waters up to their necks to the railway embankment, were swept from their feet and drowned. In aJdition to this, thirty-five-persons at the nearby Reas plantation, including several white.? were trapped by the switf flow of waters before they could reach high ground. Striking swiftly in the .early hours of the morning, the gorged river tore aside levee barriers and turned its full force on the town, driving residents from their homes into the streets attired in night clothing. With one mighty rush the waters engulfed the town hotel, ripping it from its foundations and tossing it aside to strike residences adjoining. The fire whistle and the Standard Oil plant shrieked warnings as the levee guards sped through the streets, firing pistols and rifles and shouting “Crevasse! Crevasse!” Women aroused from slumbers frantically clasped children in their arms and fLd before the waters to embankments and upper floors of buildings. Warnings to evacuate had been given on the previous day, but the inhabitants bad clung to their homes, confident that their levees old hold back the racing tide. The Texas and Pacific Railway had held a train ready to take them out,-but the watpr came so quickly the whole train was : arjoned with the refugees before it could pull out of the town to the west.

Hundreds of persons made their way to the railway bridg crossing the river on the span which provided their only link with dry land. Special trains i-.oved towards the scene from different directions. So swiftly did the waters come that few persons had opportunity to save even the most precious of personal belongings. In the flight to safety, property was abandoned in the effort to save lives. The weather bureau id its stages -re three feet above those of the memorable flood of 1882. It was e mated it ould require from three to four weeks to reach Morgan City, at the edge of the Gulf of Mexico. The weather burea.* said investigation showed that St. . Tart’j; parish was under seventeen to twenty feet'of water. At Plaucheville the current was so strong that it overturned large houses, and smaller ones collapsed before the flood like eggs’ells or rose with the waters to be carried along and pounded to pieces by the waves. A widow and her eight children were swamped at Plaucheville after they had fled from the invading waters to the attic of their home. Whenever the waters receded in other parts of the Misissippi valley, the disconsolate farmers were returning to their muddy fields and starting work of preparing and planting in the already advanced season.