Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1872-07-22
THE FLOOD IN ALABAMA.
Damage Done to the Railroads
LOWlandS Swept Clean.

We copy the following items relative
to the late heavy rains from the Mont
gomery Adrertjser of Tuesday, six
teenth:
The Alabama river was higher yester-
day and last Sunday than it has been
known to he before at any time since
the war. The bottoms, embracing the
most productive lands in the State, are
everywhere overflowed, and the damage
to the crops cannot but be immense.
This river and its tributaries wash not
less than two thousand miles of shore,
and if the overtlowed lands average
twenty acres to the mile, the loss result
ing from this overflow cannot fall short
of two millions of dollars. In times
like these so great loss is a great ca
lamity, and one calculated to cause con-
siderable inconvenience, if not actual
suffering among the planters upon
whom it actually falls. The great bend
opposite this city, which a few days
ago was covered with the most luxu-
RANT and promising crops in Autauga
county, is now nothing but a wide
waste of rushing water, unrelieved save
by an occasional tree trop which peeps
out from the muddy torrent. The bed
of the South and North road along the
lOwlands contiguous to the river is COM
pletely submerged. In several places
the track has been completely washed
away, and it will be several days before
it can be so repaired as to admit of the
passage of the trains. We have had no
Northern mail since last Friday, and it
will be yet several days before they can
get through.
The rainfall during the forty-eight
hours beginning last Thursday and ter
minating Friday night, exceeds eleven
inches--the heaviest of which we have
had any account in many years. The
wharf on the Alabama at this place is
said to be washed away, and the rapid
waters have made such inroads on the
banks of the river, that in order to avoid
the undermining of the track the Mobile
and Montgomery Railroad Company
contemplate moving the track of their
road near the foot of Commerce street
several feet further in. Such a food at
this particular season is almost, if not
altogether, unprecedented in the history
of the State.
Dispatches reach us from Wetumpka
that the Coosa, Tallapoosa, Alabama
and other small streams in that neigh
bOrhood, are about to overflow that his
torical old town. At last accounts the
CoOsa Hall had been reached, a distance
of eighty yards from the river, but the
waters are supposed to be receding at
sundown. At that time the water was
only four feet beneath the high old
bridge that connects East and West
Wetumpka.
A large planter in Gilmore county says
that the overflow in the bend opposite
this city will destroy between ten and
fourteen thousand. bushels of corn be-
tween here and Wetumpka, and that
the damage to the crops down tie river
cannot now be estimated, but that it
viii be very heavy.
We learn that the track of the Selma,
Rome and Dalton railroad was washed
away in several places by the late rains,
and that the splendid new bridge across
the Coosa river is seriously threatened
by the Hoods We hope, however, that
II VIII escape serious injury, and that
before many days the trains viii be
running on their regular schedule.