Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 May 1892 — RIVERS ALL RAGING. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

RIVERS ALL RAGING.

DANGER THREATENED AT MANY POINTS. Wont Floods for Many Years—Farmers In the Overflowed DUtrls|| In Imminent Peril—Loss of Live Stock and Crops Will Be Very Great. Wide Waste of Water.

HE Ole Missip Is a boomin’ ” is the correct river expression for the condition of the father of waters at St. Louis. The danger line has

been reached and the mighty stream has already spread itself over territory not rightfully its own, doing great damage to its banks and to the movable property of citizens along the shore between Bremen on the north and Biver des Peres on the south. The rise came within thirty-six hours, and the water is still creeping up. Near the Merchants’ bridge, in North St. Louis, scores of men in the employ of the lumber companies are at work securing lumber piles from the water. Last Saturday these piles were from twenty to thirty .feet from the water. Where the river seems to have created the greatest havoc is a squatter” settlement about half a mile below the Merchants’ bridge, called "Oklahoma.” The greater number of the squatters’ homes are small flatboats or floating houses, some of them in the water, others on land supported on stilts. The danger line is 28 feet for a number of houses along the river front. At last reports the water was 27 feet 7 inches. Damage Beyond Estimation. Near Brunswick, Mo., the Missouri and Grand Elvers have been rising rapidly for several days. Monday was spent in rescuing the inhabitants of the bar south of that place, which was formed about twenty years ago by the Missouri Elver changing its channel, and has lately become valuable farming land. Much stock was also taken off the bar. Hundreds of acres are covered by the floods and dozens of homes destroyed. Monday evening the ferryboat, loaded with people and horses, was broken from its cable by drift and floated down the stream. One woman fell into the river, but was rescued. The drifting ferry-boat was carried down the stream for almost four miles, where it landed on a bar in the Missouri Elver and the people were rescued by some fishermen. Much Suffering In Nebraska.

Never has Nebraska experienced such a long-continued down-pour of rain. The Missouri Elver is nine feet above low water mark. There is no flood at Omaha, but reports from points below indicate that the river is rising rapidly and already out of its banks and flooding the lowa and Missouri bottomlands. Eeports from all along the lines of the Omaha roads tell of rain and snow in the Black Hills and in Western Nebraska and cloudiness all the way to Salt Lake. All trains were late and there are a number of washouts reported, though none of them have caused accidents. There is a washout between Beatrice and Lincoln on the Union Pacific branch, and the Eock Island main line trains are using the Burlington tracks instead. The rain has so filled the approaches of the Missouri Pacific Plattßmouth bridge that the opening of the bridge has been delayed until June. Snow has fallen in Western Nebraska, ranging in depth from sixteen inches in the northwestern portion to two inches in the southwestern portion of the State'. iowans May Seek the Hills. At Ottumwa, lowa, a heavy rain has set the Des Moines Elver booming again. The water has risen rapidly and continues to rise. The rain, it is feared, will swell the river to the highest point since 1856, when all the city except that part on the hills was submerged. Dead Farm Animals Floating By. The Maumee near Toledo, Ohio, is on the rampage, being higher than was ever known before, except at the floods caused by ice gorge in 1883 and 1881. Parts of buildings, trees, fence rails, dead cattle, hogs, sheep and general debris came down- Eeports tell of extensive devastation at Defiance, Antwerp, Napoleon, Fort Wayne, Maumee and Perrysburg. Marengo Island, off Perrysburg, where are many summer cottages, was nearly covered, and six or seven houses have been washed away. Bad Snow In South Dakota. At Bedfield, S. D., quite a heavy snowstorm occurred Tuesday morning, but melted almost as fast as it fell. Eain has been falling all the time since. During the past forty days eight inches of water has fallen there, the heaviest downpour known since the settlement of the country. There has been no damage to crops. Five Children Killed Outright* William Wilkins and wife and five children, colored, thinking a storm was brewing, retired into a cyclone cave at their home in the southwest part of Anthony, Kan. The heavy rain so undermined the house that the roof fell on the sleeping people. Wilkins succeeded in getting out and arousing the neighbors, who assisted him in rescuing the wife alive. The five children, from 6 months to 14 years of age, were taken out dead.