GREATEST PEACE-TIME DISASTER IN HISTORY
Greatest Peace-Time Disaster in History Receding Mississippi Flood Waters Show Scene of Desolation and Suffering of Whole Countryside THE FLOOD waters of the Mississippi that roared through the...
...Nearly every man in that line seemed ashamed to be there...
...There are five great crevasses of major proportions in the main Mississippi levee chain which are continuing to discharge th£ excess flood waters into the Tensas Basin...
...He is a typical old 'darky' of the plantation type...
...Speers...
...Business likewise has suffered...
...Some were turned upside down, while others were filled with mud and slime...
...In one place the torrent had broken open the graves...
...Speers was there, more than one-half of Greenville, normally a city of 15,000, was under water, and two-thirds of the rich farm lands behind, above and below it were submerged...
...It was said that the line was three times as long at dawn, and this was four o'clock in the afternoon...
...Along the Arkansas River zone stands the only two-story house in that area...
...Martinville...
...Arkansas City, when Mr...
...Speers, was the richest of all except New Orleans, in soil as well as history, before the flood...
...Hundreds of poor families and old people, to whom an army tent and a Red Cross blanket had been the only home and furniture they had known for more than two months...
...The made river gouged great gulches like miniature canyons...
...The church, too, escaped and so did the rectory, where lives old Father Peeters, the comforter of a heartbroken people who have lost nearly everything they could call their own...
...great holes and craters were everywhere...
...The mules and cow shared one bed-room...
...The parish of St...
...There were no women in line, but the men stood four abreast on the steps and the line stretched almost a block down the main street...
...Martin will again take her place in the forefront of Evangeline parishes...
...Moved Houses and Barns THESE people loved their homes...
...It wasn't no time for foolin,' he said, 'and us mules and things sho' did know" it and we ain't forgot it yit' ". Suffering Not Intense JUST NOW, with summer weather, the suffering is not so intense as would otherwise be the case...
...In the upper floor of the house were the mules, the cows, the hogs, a couple of dogs, a big flock of chickens, ten or more turkeys, a calf and some guinea-hens...
...that even flood control, so live an issue a few weeks ago, may be relegated to second place if some officials prominent in public affairs have their way...
...t Rehabilitation is First Problem JUDGE JOHN DALE declared that the two big problems that must be met without delay are, first, to rehabilitate the destitute and give them an even chance for a new start, and, secondly, for the Government without delay to begin the safeguarding of the valley, not only the part bordering on the Mississippi proper but also along its main tributaries...
...He was asked to stay to save the animals and fowls belonging to his neighbors...
...We have no pasturage left, and that means a problem to hold our livestock, and in the matter of sanitation we are allowed $10 a day...
...Our lowlands are still about six feet under water...
...He says that "the big problem facing us is three-fold: first, rehabilitation of our farmers...
...The time to begin closing these gaps was weeks ago...
...According to the carefully weighed statements of prominent officials and citizens, thousands of the people in Eastern Louisiana are utterly destitute, without money, without credit...
...As matters now stand it would appear that the Federal Government is the only agency to finance the repairs of the levees, for the parishes in which the breaks occurred are without funds...
...That is absolutely impossible," said Sheriff E. P. Campbell of Concordia...
...s— Sweep Evangeline Country IN ST...
...A lone farmer with his wife and family had braved the mosquito-infested desolation to fight for a harvest...
...Speers reports that the people of Vidalia have been told that the Government expects them to pay one-fourth of the cost of the levee replacements...
...It is a man-sized job and one that will require months to execute...
...Crevasses Still Open AND YET every crevasse in Louisiana is still open...
...Even the elements revered the resting place of Emmeline Labiche, famed in history as Longfellow's Evangeline...
...For more than eleven weeks a train had not arrived in the city...
...With the exception of the big plantation owners, 90% have no money in the bank, nor have they security to offer for long-time loans, and that is the only kind of loan that will really help...
...the chickens and turkeys another...
...He has written a series of heart-rending articles picturing the desolation and suffering of the whole countryside...
...Worms Destroy Crops TO ADD to the misery, the after-flood crop which some struggling souls have succeeded in raising has been attacked by an infestation of worms that threatens to destroy every crop when a few days out of the ground...
...They continue an ever-present menace to the safety of thousands of people...
...Houses and barns were carried miles away on the swirling race from farm to farm...
...To get money the farmer must give security, and in the case of those who need it most, the security is either in or on the way to the Gulf of Mexico...
...According to official estimates, it will cost not less than $500,000,000 to close them...
...Charity is an abomination to them, and it is bitter to have had to become wards of the Red Cross...
...What will be the case if malaria and fever gain a foothold only the future can tell...
...Delta Area Flooded THE Delta is the richest of the Mississippi farm lands, and the most productive of the Delta acres are those to the north, south and east of Greenville...
...The thinking citizens are worrying about the big problem of the coming winter...
...They have nothing left...
...L. C. Sneers, a most able correspondent, was sent by the New York Times down into the Hood area to describe conditions there...
...From their elevation they could look across the desolation, the water sweeping along the debris of ruined dwellings and drowned cattle...
...After the water receded, they found- Willis...
...the pigs were in the hall...
...He found just one house in which there was a family...
...All Greenville realizes that there is a terrific battle ahead, and yet in all Greenville there is not a man or woman who will jiot say with a smile that "Greenville is coming back...
...Father Peeters faced the flood to the end and refused to budge...
...Our people, having lost their security, have automatically lost their credit...
...God only knows what is going to happen...
...In St...
...The splendid fields, as clean of grass and weeds as Fifth Avenue, the houses dating back to the eighteenth century, the schools, churches, the little villages like those of peasant France, full of history and romance, were deluged by the flood...
...If we can manage to do that we will survive the crisis, and St...
...There are numerous outstanding farmers, as well as persons in other lines of business, who declare that the recently organized farm loan organizations cannot solve the problem...
...second, pasturage of livestock...
...and last, the sanitation of the water-logged regions of the parish, and this includes about all of it...
...When Mr...
...The floors and windows of farmhouses are gone, and foundations undermined, and in some cases farm buildings have been floated miles away from where they stood when the deluge swooped down on us...
...MARTIN, former State Senator T. J. Ijibbe, now a member of the Louisiana State Health Commission, took charge of the situation when the flood arose...
...No crops, taxes coming due, and only the Red Cross between them and starvation in the dark months ahead...
...Referring to his charges, Willis said that 'we' had managed to be quite comfortable, even when the waters were lapping at the floor of the second story...
...How can a man pay when he has not a cent in the world left that he can call his own...
...With Father Peeters he directed the evacuation of the farm lands and little villages, and he did it pll in four hours...
...Who is going to shoulder the burden ? Every merchant, every bank holds the paper of hundreds of farmers whose assets have been lost...
...The different zones present one nightmare after another...
...Just one person remained with the flood along this particular Stretch of the Arkansas, and his haven was that house on the edge of the water line, relates Mr...
...Who can blame the sufferers for losing faith in the Federal Government for the delay in beginning this work, a work not only of mercy but of absolute necessity...
...Bankruptcy is the rule, and the percentage of those who are not absolutely bankrupt is so small as to be negligible...
...Greatest Peace-Time Disaster in History Receding Mississippi Flood Waters Show Scene of Desolation and Suffering of Whole Countryside THE FLOOD waters of the Mississippi that roared through the crevasse in the levees of the Bayou des Glaises and Melville, parted round an unmarked grave in an iron-fenced lot next the old church of St...
...Day and night the Governor and his aides are laboring to ease the burdens of thousands of their less fortunate citizens...
...At Breaux Bridge the Red Cross was doling out food supplies in a hall over a billiard saloon...
...North of Little Rock, on the Arkansas, the flood currents assumed terrifying proportions...
...The impression seems general that the more than 600,000 sufferers in the greatest peacetime disaster in history have been largely forgotten...
...Wrecking crews were busy, and trains were coming within a short distance of the city, which was reached from the temporay terminals by boat or by motor...
...Speers was there, was disappearing under water for the third time...
...All we want is to keep our people and our livestock from starving...
...I collect the taxes and I know...
...He had a stand of "baby" cotton, and he was planting something he knew nothing about, something "that was as strange to him as Broadway would be to an Eskimo," namely, soy beans...
...His name was Willis Edmundson...
...There was just one bright spot, only comparatively few persons lost their lives...
...And such is the predicament of not less than 90% of the farmers whose homes are behind the levees in this and sister parishes of Tensas and Catahoula...
...Nothing has been done, and the natives say that it is almost too late to dam them in time to hold back the normal flood waters which should be roaring off the Natchez highlands early in the spring of the coming year...
...He accepted the commission...
...The future could not be any darker than it now appears to be...
...Speers...
...There were hundreds still hours away from the distribution counters...
...Martinville, hundreds were waiting before a garage which was used by the Red Cross for a distributing center...
...From Governor John E. Martineau to the humblest citizen outside the flood zones all Arkansas is standing shoulder to shoulder, says Mr...
...JV- Speers drove for hours through the gullied river zone in Conway County, one of the finest standard staple cottongrowing sections of the State...
...Great sections of Louisiana are still under water...
...What does the flood country look like...
...and, tragedy to the farmer, much of the land is- sanded and thus useless as far as crops are concerned...
...Martin in the heart of the Evangeline country, according to Mr...
...He said that until this was done there would never be any guarantee of security from flood disasters in the valley of the Mississippi...
...It was estimated that fully 80%r of the rich parish of Madison was still beneath the deluge, and half of Concordia and Tensas...
...He was on the roof knitting a fish-net...
...The ground was still soggy, but he was in the field...
...We have been literally shot to pieces...
Vol. 19 • August 1927 • No. 8
