The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1881-05-06
THE NEWS.
Tha Flood III KANSAS citv-

KANSAS CRY, Mo-, April 28.-This
has been. day of great excitement in
Kansas City. The water in the Nilsson
ri continued TO rise throughout the night
and day, and is rising still. AT nine
O'Clock this morning the dyke raised
along the Missouri river in front of the
bottoms gave way in the ighborhood
called Hells HalEAcrs, and torrent
poured through, driving the people. from
their homes in great terror. An Efforts
to stay the Hood were vain and within an
hour a large district was inundated TO
the depth of from four to ten feet.
At noon torrent began TO pour over
Ninth street submerging another distriet
as large as the first and driving the ter
ror stricken inhabitants before it. The
water backing up the Kaw river sub
merged large part of the stock yards
and the surrounding district inhabited
by the families of the employees OF Fow-
Ter Bros packing house, and surround
ing their large boarding houses.
The water stands several feet deep in a
large number of stores on Union avenue
and James street and covers the street
railway on these streets for fire or six
squares.
In the neighborhood known Us Ar
mourdale, across the Kaw River from
ROlLlt vi SOlOACA
families were surprised by the flood and
at least five persons were drowned. The
water rushed over the doomed town SO
rapidly that the inhabitants could only
fee for their lives without being able to
remove any part of their household goods.
Fully 800 families were thus thrown
out of their houses in an incredibly
short time, and are now elcamped on
the high grounds around Armstrong,
with strong probability that their
houses will go down the stream.
1t would take columns of newspaper
space to describe the situation as il now
exists, together with list of the serious
damage inflicted. At least 5000 people
are driven from their homes, and the
approaches to the high grounds of the
main portion of the city present a
strange appearance, piles of household
goods and crowds Of dazed refugees
from the flood appearing on every hand.
The water now extends on the north
side of West Ninth street from the U MON
elevator 10 James street, and from Lib
erty TO Ewing street. That thorough
fare is full of water on the south side of
Ninth. The locality between Liberty
and Ewing streets is flooded and grow
ing worse every hour. The street cars
run with great difficulty, the water be-
ing up to the floors of the cars. The
streets are filed with wagons moving
goods from the threatened localities, and
all vehicles of every description are
pressed into service
In East Kansas City a similar state of
affairs exist, rendering homeless for
time, at least, q thousand people. Thou
sands of feet of lumber have been car
ried away, and piles of sand secured
from the river during the winter, have
been washed into the current and have
disappeared. This will cause great de-
lay in the large building operations of
the city for long time. Elevator a,
owned by Vaughan s. Co, is in immi-
nent danger. The water laps the building
on the Missouri river side, and on the
south side large body of water is run
ming. A gang of men and teams are at
work banking up the building. There
are forty thousand bushels of grain in
the elevator, and if the flood does not
speedily subside the loss at this elevator
will be very large.
While tOw-bOat was bringing over a
barge loaded with household goods from
Harlem, today, the barge sank and the
cargo is total loss On the barge were
two men who were resuced with
great difficulty. In q trunk which
was lost with the goods was fifteen
hundred dollars in money. The
total loss by the accident is about So, 600,
The height of the water at 0 p. IN. was
twenty-six feet six inches above low
water mark. with q rise during the day
of nine inches.