Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 March 1882 — The Flood In the Lower Mississippi-An Awful inundation. [ARTICLE]

The Flood In the Lower MississippiAn Awful inundation.

Memphis, Tenn., Feb. 23. A deplorable condition of affairs exists throughout the Lower Mississippi valley. Thon sands of men are on constant guard along tl e levees between here and Vicksburg, using every possible means to strengthen their power of resistance and elevate their crests, to prevent the water from inundating the whole country. Washington, Issaquena, Bolivar, Coahoma and Tufllca counties, Miss., and', in fact, the whole shore line between Memphis and Vicksburg on the Mississippi side, and the whole eastern shore of Arkansas, are either under water or threatened with inundation. The inhabitants of a vast area of country are in great distress. Many have been forced from their houses, and are subsisting the best they may on rafts, and some on knolls or parts of the old levees. The destruction of live stock is beyond calculation. The waste of property by the great submersion is outside the limit of present computation. Navigation of the river itself is regarded by steamboatmen as dangerous at its present stage on account of the great expanse of water m many localities and the billowy character of the waves when the surface is swept by heavy gusts of wind. Between Cairo and Memphis the following points of land are only visible above a surging flood : the bluffs at Columbus, the bills back of Hickman, land on the Tennessee side opposite Island 10, New Madrid, Point Pleasant, Tiptonville, Fulton bluffs, Randolph, Richardson’s, Islands 35 and 36 'and Dean’s island, above the head of the Centennial cut-off, forty-miles above Memphis. Gov. Lowry, of Mississippi, has appealed to the people of Memphis and other cities for aid. A sad accident occurred on the Tyronza, a small bayou, which empties into the St. Francis river about twenty mnes above Madison, Ark. Se high water had overflowed lands belongto a Mr. Jamison, and, while engaged in removing his wife and six children to a place of safety on the high lands, the dugont which contained them capsized, drowning all the children, two of whom were grown young ladies, the remaining four being aged from 6 to 14 years. Jamison saved his wife, but could render no assistance to the drowning children.