Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1912 — 100,000 HOMELESS BY RIVER FLOOD [ARTICLE]

100,000 HOMELESS BY RIVER FLOOD

People in Torras Region, Flee in Panic. CREVICE 1,000 FEET WIDE i Government Is Supplying Rations to Stricken People, Whose Escape Is Endangered by Stampede of l Frightened Animals. New Orleans, May 3.—Giving up their unequal fight against the great floods pouring southward in the Mississippi, the colony of men who tor 24 hours have been fighting to close the crevice in the Torras levee were rescued by a steamboat, and the Hood is spreading over thousands of acres, of the richest sugar plantation in the south. More than 100,000 people are homeless in the Torras region, which is across the river from Angola, La., and are fleeing in panic to higher ground, which, in many instances, is several miles distant. The Angola sugar refinery, recently erected on the Angola plantation by the state, is flooded and will be a total wreck. Crevice Thousand Feet Wide.

The Morgan levee, which is ■ the highest in the world, except the dykes in Holland, is weakening and it is feared that it will gc out. The crevice in the Torras levee is nearly a thousand feet wide and is rapidly crumbling. At baton Rouge the situation is causing serious apprehension. Although the crest of the flood will not reach there for several days, the river is already beyond flood stage. The federal government is supplying rations to the homeless in the flooded area. The escape of people from their homes has been greatly ini peded by the stampeding of animals turned loose by their owners, the frightened horses and cattle swimming up to many of the boats and lasts carrying away refugees from their homes

Torras People in Panic. The residents of Torras, relytng implicitly on the strength of the levee, wefe taken by surprise when the break came. A panic ensued. Before the streets were entirely submerged, however, most of the population managed to board passenger cars that had been kept In readiness, and were taken out of town. Several hundred escaped by riding in freight cars. ,No fatalities have been reported, but it is feared that there will be loss of life m the interior, as the water Is rushing over the country so rapidly that it will be impossible to warn all points affected. Farmers Flee to Hills. Cairo, 111., May 3.—With the river marking 48 feet and five-tenths on Cairo gauge, water has again flooded a great section of country in Missouri and Kentucky, south of Cairo, and hundreds of iamiiies are fleeing to the hills. All territory around Bird’s Point,, Mo., is again under several feet of water and farmers in that section have moved their families and stock to high ground for the second time within five weeks. The water has flooded the drainage district north of Cairo to a depth of about seven feet. Not a foot more of water is looked for until the rivers commence falling.