RECORD RAINS IN AMERICA

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20639, 30 January 1937, Page 11

RECORD RAINS IN AMERICA

DAMAGE BY TERRIBLE FLOOD REPORTED CARGOES OF DEAD United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright (Received January 29, 7.30 p.m.) NEW YORK, January 28. A new crisis is developing at Louisville where Kaufman Straus and Company’s department stores, a four storey building, is reported to be near collapse. Other larger buildings with the same foundations, it is feared, are also weakening. Greatest Ever Recorded Meteorologists saj that the rains responsible for the flood are the greatest ever recorded in so short a time over such a large area. The average for the entire Ohio Valley for 26 days was 16 inches. Johnsonville, in Tennessee, had the highest recording of 23.11 inches, which is 2611 tons of water per acre. Louisville had the highest of the larger cities, the fall being 18.58 inches. The Secretary of Agriculture (Mr Euan Wallace) said that the rains were so heavy that no flood control projects cuold have prevented the inundation. Cargoes of Dead Officials in Louisville have tightened their censorship on news regarding the number of dead and continue to insist that fatalities have been few. I They have appointed William Stoll, brother-in-law of Mrs Stoll, who was involved in the kidnapping case last May, as co-ordinator of information. All future statements for the Press will come from him. Two Associated Press photographers discovered boats unloading cargoes of dead near a pontoon bridge. When they took flash-bulb pictures, police and soldiers drove them away and threatened to smash their cameras. There was no way of determining how many bodies the boats contained, but one army official confided that 40 bodies were carried across the bridge during the day. The same photographers got pictures of one trench cemetery in the highlands containing 150 caskets. It is learned that the finger prints of many of the unindentified deaji have been taken in the hope of establishing their identity later. Crest of the Flood The crest of the flood is nearing Paducah, in Kentucky, from which it is estimated 15,000 people have been evacuated. Eight hundred persons are marooned in a hotel. Many are believed dead, but it is impossible to hunt for the bodies because of the rising river. RELIEF OF DISTRESS THOUSANDS HELPING IN STRICKEN STATES United Press Association—By Electrio Telegraph—Copvrlgbt (Received January 29, 5.5 p.m.) WASHINGTON, January 28. A relief corps, numbering 130,000 concentrated on two fronts tb-day in cleaning up the Ohio Valley and preparing for the expected rising of the Mississippi. To-day's, estimate of the known dead is 235. The homeless are estimated at 1,000,000, and property damage is in excess of 400,000,000 dollars.