IRRESISTIBLE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19841, 16 May 1927, Page 7

IRRESISTIBLE

Floods Sweep Onward to the Gulf . of Mexico FORTY THOUSAND MORE FARMS DOOMED TERRIBLE DESTRUCTION IN LOUISIANA

Received May 15, 5.5 p.m. (A. & N.Z.) NEW YORK, May 14. News from New Orleans states that the Mississippi surged into the countryside through the honeycombed levee along the Big Bend at a rate estimated by engineers at well over 7,000,000 cubic feet a second. Some parishes are already under water and others are rapidly becoming part of the huge lake which soon will stretch from Louisiana’s northern border to the Gulf of Mexico. As the result of Bayou des Glaizes breaks the evacuation of the threatened sugar lands is continuing The majority of the 100,000 inhabitants have already left the farms, but straggling groups are still moving along the highways towards the refugee camps. The Governor of Louisiana reports that the situation of many marooned families is serious. The river at New Orleans has shown the surprising rise of four-tenths of a foot in the past eight hours. This is attributed by the Weather Bureau to the effect of the wind and tides. It is now 20.6 ft. high, and with the crest the prediction is that it will rise to 21ft. Apparently nothing can divert the flood between the levee breaks and the Gulf, but the crest should have passed into the Gulf within a few days, after which, unless unexpected developments occur in the valley, the work of rehabilitation will begin.

Before this happens another 1,000,000 acres of land, comprising between 40,000 and 50,000 farms, are doomed. The entire territory must be evacuated, bringing the total

number of persons forced from thdt homes in Louisiana alone to 300,000. Meantime reports from Tensas basin repeal a serious refugee problem throughout the Louisiana bottomlands. A wireless message from Jonesville states that the water there has risen thirteen inches in the last twenty-four hours. Refugees have been found on rafts. Thirty men, in small boats, reported near Acme a large number of women and children on flatboats, who, they said, were without food, These were rescued. NEGROES FOLLOW NOAH BUT ARK REFUSES TO FLOAT. DISASTER HAS ITS HUMOROUS SIDE. Received May 15, 6 p.m. (Sun Cable). NEW YORK, May 14. Exhorted by their parson, the coloured community in tho lowlands near Baton Rouge emulated the example of Noah, when they heard that the flood was approaching. They built an ark, into which they carried all their worldly belongings chickens, dogs, cats and mules, and then waited and prayed for tho flood to come. The ark refused to float, as tho water poured in at a hundred leaks, and tho craft was later covered by two feet of water.

Tho occupants fled to tho safety of a railway embankment.