Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 June 1895 — RUIN IN MEDICINE VALLEY. [ARTICLE]

RUIN IN MEDICINE VALLEY.

The Dreadful Effect of the Flood Plainly Discernible. Death and destruction rushed hand in hand down Medicine Valley, Neb., on the crest of a raging flood. Swelled by the heavy rains until its banks could no longer withstand the strain, Curtis Lake burst from its restraint, and Monday’s sun shone upon a valley of desolation through southwest Nebraska. Thousands of dollars’ worth of railroad property has been destroyed, miles of meadows that covered the earth with a carpeting’ of green are now a muddy waste, dotted with wrecked buildings and drowned live stock. No lives were lost. Most of the damage is to crops where the fields were fl^hded. The first intimation Curtis citizens had that the locality was threatened with disaster was the bursting of tlgvlake’s banks with a roar that could bfj heard several miles, and a wall of water ten feet high rushed down the valley, scurrying everything in its path. Houses, freight cars, live stoek and a mountain of debris were caught up and dashed about like feathers. The fine roller mills which occupy the east side of the great ravine received the first shock of the torrent and the building was ruined. A few hundred yards below the mills Medicine river passes under the railroad tracks of the Burlington. When the flood struck this harrow defile its progress was impeded, but only for an instant. Then the heavy embankments gave way and the wall of water rushed through, cutting a path 100 yards wide. The railroad company’s loss is about $25,000. As the wall of wnter passed beyond the city it rapidly spread out over an immense territory, and its powers of destruction were correspondingly decreased. The damage, however, was merely shifted, as the extensive alfalfa meadows for many miles to the south were flooded several feet deep, and all details from the south where the torrent passed indicate very extensive damage. Farm products of every description were engulfed and in many instances where the homes of the farmers were in the immediate vicinity of the valley the disaster was almost ruinous. Small buildings were washed away or uiv dermined in such a manner as to be rendered worthless, and in some sections the water rose so rapidly as to seriously menace the lives of families.