Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 66, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 April 1904 — HAVOC BY STORM AND FLOOD. [ARTICLE]

HAVOC BY STORM AND FLOOD.

Wind and Rain Cause Great Damage and Death. Twenty-five lives are known to have been lost, while fears are entertained that more than twice that number perished in a tornado that swept the country twenty miles north of Carruthersville, Mo., Sunday night. The property loss is estimated at $75,000. The body of Wesley Miller, a wealthy planter, was found 200 yards from his house,, which was demolished by the storm. Fifteen hundred dollars In bills was found scattered about near the body. Eight other bodies were found near wrecked homes. The tornado swept clear a path 300 yards wide, destroying everything in its course. While the sndden drop in temperifture relieved the flood situation in the vicinity of Chicago and northern Illinois, reports from adjacent States indicate that there has been little or no abatement in the severity of the inundation. Nearly half of Indiana was practically submerged Sunday and hundreds of families forced to abandon their homes. In Michigan the severity of the unprecedented floods is most acutely felt In the vicinity of Grand Rapids and the towns along the Grand river, which for three days has been flowing in a stream several hundred yards wider than its customary channel. At Indianapolis Sunday night large areas of the resident district were covered with water. Hundreds of families were driven from their homes, street car service paralyzed, and all the suburban towns completely cut off, with the White river, which subsided somewhat early Monday morning, rising at night at the rate of two inches an hour. Fall creek, which runs through the northern section of the city, broke its banks, and poured a stream five feet high out upon a thickly settled district The police force were guarding the various bridges, piloting the people over, and warning them in various ways, and the resident companies of the State National Guard were called out to assist the police. One of the large and substantial bridges-over the river broke loose and was swept away.

It is estimated that at least half of the State of Indiana is under water, while nearly all of it is suffering from th 4 effects. Anderson and Marion are the other points of most desperate emergency. At Anderson 300 families have been housed in the old armory, after being driven from their homes, and at Marion the same number of families have been cared for by more fortunate residents. Portland and Vincennes report losses of SIOO,OOO each for the towns and their contiguous territories, and at the former place two men were drowned. Thirty bridges were carried away in Knox County. The Noblesville water works plant is six feet under water, and a railroad bridge has been carried away with a loss of four lives. Fort Wayne, Terre Haute, Wabash, Logansport, Lafayette, Richmond—in fact, nearly all the principal cities and towns of the State —report flood situations equal to or exceeding the worst previously recorded, with the situation hourly growing worse. Several cities are in darkness, water having quenched the fires of the electric light and power plants, and many industries have been forced to shut down. The loss to farmers, especially in the bottoms, Is very heavy. The Wabash, White and other smaller streams are devastating thousands of acres in southern Indiana, and at many points are five to teu miles wide. The Ohio rose fifteen feet Sunday night and inundated Lawrenceburg and other portions of Dearborn County. At Wabash City, miles of bottom land are flooded and hundreds of homes depopulated.