Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 April 1890 — PERCHED ON HOUSE-TOPS. [ARTICLE]

PERCHED ON HOUSE-TOPS.

Information from what is known as the Laconia Circle, a section of country between Helena and Arkansas City, which is practically surrounded by the Mississippi and White rivers, is to the effect that the people there are in a deplorable condition and suffering. The water poured over the levees on all sides and in three hours the Circle was filled even with the surface of the rivers, the water averaging eight feet deep. This occurred so suddenly that the people had no time to do anything. Their houses, stock, and everything else they owned was in the water, and in some cases swept away before they realized what had happened. The citizens of Helena sent the steamer Houston Coombs down there on the 24th as a relief boat to aid the people. A correspondent on board writes that when the steamer arrived at the Circle a number of houses were found to have been blown off their blocks or stilts, and others were bally careened over into the water. People had been living in Jofts of some of the lower houses, and when these oareened they could only escape by knocking holes in the roofs. Several peo pie were blown in the water and swam to trees, where they remained all day and night, and a number of cattle were blown from the levees and drowned. On the 25th men went over the whole Circle in skiffs and transferred people from trees and roofs to the gin houses, which are generally large and substantial buildings, AU these houses are now packed with people, two hundred people being in some of them.

The protection levee north of Greenville, Miss., gave way, Monday, despite the most heroic efiorts on the part of the people, and the waters poured in upon a city which, since its existence, has been above the level of the Mississippi at its greatest hight. The flood is a tremendous one, and the volume of water that is pouring in from the three breaks above is spreading out in all directions, inundating plantation after plantation, which, in the flood of 1882 were above water. It is estimated by engineers that a large portion of the city will not be flooded, and the greatest hight the water will reach in the lower part will be three feet. The telephone lines are all down above Greenville. It is greatly feared that the heavy wind and rain prevailing will cause the levees to give way in new TTrllMlflMi I : r i ' ' -'• jnouuua

The waters from the Austin break will have an outlet into the Yazoo River,which will inundate a large section of the country in Sunflower and Yazoo counties. The water reached Washington avenae, one of the principal business streets of the oity, and tbe people are navigating it in skiffs. No lives have been reported lost, and no actual suffering is anticipated unless the flood continues for a considerable length of time. Two white men and one negro, coming from Stoneville to Greenville in a skiff, were drowned by tbe upsetting of tbe boat. Many casualties have resulted from skiffs coming in contact with wire fences and other hidden obstructions.