OCR Text |
Show PROSPECTS DF SAVING LEVEES ARE FAVORABLE Engineers in the Lower Mississippi Missis-sippi Valley Take Courage When Rain Ceases and the Sun Shines Few Hours. FLOOD SITUATION CONTINUES GLOOMY Thousands of Refugees in the Camps Must Be Fed for Weeks to Come; Relief Funds Getting Scarce. NEW ORLEANS, May 4. About half a dozen hours of sunshine in the valley of tho lower Mississippi Mis-sissippi today Rave some relief from the tense anxiety of the last ferr days. Throatenine clouds gathered at intervals throughout the day, but the flood Gates ovorhead held back the drenching rains, -which for a month have been adding to tho alroady onor- Ttiniin TTilnmn nf mflnnMntr flnnd wafcnrn piled high against the leveos. Engineers -who yesterday wore almost al-most hopeless, today Baid prospects of saving the remaining levees wore favorable. fa-vorable. But tho danger is not past. Tho weather bureau has scheduled another an-other foot rise in the river above the present record-breaking stages from the Bed river south. Will Levees Hold? The crest with its accompanying increased in-creased danger of destructive crevasses is not expected to pass Baton Eoutre and points Eouth of there for another week. Will the big Morganza dyke, holding back a wall of water forty feet high, hold! Will the threatened levees at Baton Bougo, at Grand Bay, at Labarxe, at Scott's Point and above and below New Orleans be impregnable impreg-nable f Tho engineers say they hope so, but offer nothing more encouraging. The best remedy is sunshine. To- day's absence of rain permitted tho thousands of laborers employed on ! weak stretches of the levees to work I ' uninterruptedly and tonight encouraging encourag-ing reports came in from all tho points up and down the river. ,No other breaks occurred on the Mississippi today, but on the Bayou de Glaine, in East Central Louisiana, where the great volume of flood water from the disastrous Dog-tail Dog-tail crevasse is hourly mounting higher, high-er, one break was reported iu the levees. Refugees in Camp. Approximately 4000 persons have moved out of Pointe Coupee parish to the refugee camps on the east side of the river. More than. 1200 of them aro being cared for by tho Baton Houge relief depot. Besides the thousands who already had moved out of the vast flooded territory, ter-ritory, word was received today that more than 1600 had arrived yesterday and today at Jena, and at high towns along the Iron Mountain railroad north of Alexandria, most of them having been brought in by boat from the low- lands of La Salle parish. Sovoral hundred hun-dred others havo been .taken out of lower Concordia parish the last few davs to Mississippi points across the river. Supplies for Sufferers. From Vicksburg territory the United States army relief depot haB been furnishing fur-nishing supplies to approximately 9000 persons, about half of whom came from the overflowed northeast Louisiana Louis-iana territory and the other half from Mississippi. The Baton Eouge federal depot is furnishing supplies to approximately 30.000 others. Local relief committees are caring for probably 40,000 others. This gives a grand, total of approximately approxi-mately 131,000 persons the floods havo driven from their homes in Mississippi and Louisiana. A large number of them will have to be fed and clothed for weeks to come. Relief funds already are getting scarce and appeals are going out for help. Los Angeles today telegraphed a substantial contribution. Congress Must Act. WASHINGTON, May 4. Tho failure of confess to pass tho resolution appropriation appro-priation of $420,000 for tho relief of tho flood sufferers alonp tho Mississippi river caused the war department, to Instruct Major Normoyle, In charge of the work at Memphla, to ceaso making contracts for supplies, and prompted the Amorlcan National Red Cross society to lasuo a second urgent appeal for funds to tuke up the work of relief when the army stops. Urged to action, the house lato today passed the relief resolution, but tho mcas-uro mcas-uro still lacks tho KanctJon of the Eenate. When tho money Is made available, only $179,000 of It will bo left, the balunco go-Jng go-Jng to tho commissary department to reimburse re-imburse It for funds already spent from Its regular appropriation. It was declared today by Commissary General Sharp of the army that probably JiGO.OOO would bo needed to take earn of the situation. Fully 160.000 persona In tho flooded sections sec-tions aro being jfod dally on army rations. The first flood Is Just entorlnj? the Louisiana Lou-isiana district and another Is on it way down the river. In Louisiana alono during dur-ing the flood of 1882 1281,000 was spent. Tne present conditions aro much more serious and thero are moro people to take car of. |