Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 July 1891 — FATAL FLOODS IN IOWA [ARTICLE]

FATAL FLOODS IN IOWA

EIGHT LIVES LOST FROM CLOUD-BURSTS. Bridges, Railroad Tracks, Crops, Farm Buildings, and a Village Swept Away— Twelve Inches of Water Said to Have Fallen in the Cherokee Valley—Hundreds of People Homeless and Hundreds of Cattle Drowned. Late telegraphic dispatches indicate that the storm in the northwestern counties of lowa was more severe than at first reported. A dispatch from Waterloo says 100 houses at Cherokee were washed away, and euerythlng is in the wildest confusion. The same is true at Correctlonville and no word by telegraph can be received from there. It is now known, thoiugh, that six persons met their derffh in the country around about Correctionville, and the number is reported increased to eight. Houses, barns and outhouses were reported floating in the Little Sioux past Cherokee a 1 day. No one knows where they came from, but they are presumed to be from Sutherland. Aurelins, nine miles east of Cherokee, reports storm clouds gathering in the vicinity of Cherokee agan. An Illinois Central work train has succeeded in reaching a point about one jnile east of Cherokee, further progress being barred by a vast expanse of water stretching as far as the eye can reach. It is feared there will be added to the present sufferings of citizens the pangs of hunger. All the surplus stock of provisions was destroyed by the flood, and the town is now as effectually isolated from the rest of the world as though no railroads were In existence.

Says a Sioux City dispatch: Reports are received from all quarters of unprecedented high water in the streams, injury to railroad property, loss of bridges, and destruction of crops along tho rivers. Ihe Floyd Rivtr is out of its banks, and people have been compelled to make hasty departures to higher ground. The following additional particulars of the flood at Cherokee were received this morning: The wagon bridge over the Sioux south of the town went out about 10 o’clock Tuesday night. This was followed by all the houses on the flat in that part of tho town, numbering over one hundred. The number of people driven from their homes was between twelve and fifteen hundred. The river continued to rise until 3 o’clock, at that time being ten feet higher than was ever before known. The destruction of property alone in Cherokee is about 8200,000. Besides, almost all of the stock pastured along the Sioux were carried away by the flood, only a few animals being saved as they came down the river. Yesterday all passenger trains were stopped at Storm Lake. The flood in the Floyd River which came past LeMars and Merrill yesterday, doing great damage in the country, reached here early this morning and the river rose about twelve feet. One hundred and fifty houses In the valley are partially submerged and the families have move out to the hills. The Laral stove works, shoe factory, flour mill and foundry in the suburbs of the town are closed. A man in from Molvilie, eighteen miles east Gs here, reports that tho whole town was swept away and only ome house was untouched. A heavy flood came down Willow Creek, entering the Floyd River a mi e above this place, says a telegram from Le Mars. The bottom land along the river was at once a raging torrent nearly a mile wide. The flood washed out over a mile of embankment twenty feet high on tho Illinois Central tracks a mi!o east of Le Mars, where Willow Creole runs under the railroad. Crops on the bottoms were entirely destroyed. Hundreds of head of cattle and horses were found swimming in their pastures and were rescued by mea iu boats. The flood is the highest ever known here. The water came down from the Sutherland storm, the larger part of 1t having gone on the other sido of the divide to Cherokee. Malls were delayed thirty-six hours. It tyill take several days to fix up the Illinois Central from here to Cherokee.