The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1890-05-07
LOUISIANA UNDER WATER,
The Great MOrganza Leyee
Gives Away.
Thousands Of Miles of Planta-
tions Inundated.

dispatch from New Orleans, La.
says: The disaster that has been i'm
pending for the past month has
occurred. There has been a serious break
in the Morganza levee, the most i'm
portant dyke in the State.
The great heroic struggle is over, and a
general surrender has been made all along
the line.
After a desperate effort to save Bayou
Sara from the food q surrender was made
to the great Father of Waters, when the
guards reported that the levee had given way
at the foot of Fountain street. A general
alarm was sounded, and the people responded
promptly to the call The break was closed,
but on examination it was found that the
rising river was running over the front
levee.
Every impromptu boat and raft was
brought into requisition. Lanterns could be
seen everywhere, and the cries of
ing to save their effects were
heard on every side. Not house in town
had escaped. The beautiful Fisher Building,
the home of Mayor Irvine, supposed 20 be
the highest point in town, was flooded.
Nothing but chaos and destruction meet
the eye. The Taylor levee has given way
The first serious break in the levees in the
twenty-five feet of the Lake Concordia levee
gave way at the Helena plantation. The
water swept through with irresistible force
and the embankment continued to crumble
until at in the evening, the opening was
$50 feet wide and ten or twelve feet deep.
The water from the break has flooded all
the lower portion of Concordia parish.
In Pointe Coupee and West Baton Rouge
5000 men had been at work for several days
strengthening the levees, and at Bayou Sara
probably 20, 600 more had been trying to hold
the line of dikes: but the rain and wind storm
coupled with the high water, overthrow all
these preparations, and in twenty-four hours
no less than fifteen breaks occurred.
But the greatest disaster occurred later in
the day when tae Morganza levee gave way.
This news naturally caused the greatest con-
sternation, because Morganza protects a
large portion Of Southern Louisiana It
is one Of the finest levees on the Mississippi
with a 2oo-foot base and from fifteen
to thirty feet high, Constructed jointly
by the United States and the State
break will severely affect Pointe Coupee
West Baton Rouge, Iberville, st. Landry,
Assumption, St. Martins, St. Mary, Iberia
and Terre Bonne Parishes, and $500 or 5000
square miles, with between 40 900 or 50, 000
inhabitants, will be more or less affected by
the overflow.
The country is planted in sugar cane and
similar crops, which are destroyed by over
flows if under water ten days The amount
of loss will depend upon the duration Of the
food, but it will certainly mount well
up in the millions Back Of this
levee there. are a number Of settlements
break followed at Myrtle's Grove planta-
tion, forty miles below Bayou Sara,
on the plantation of Congressman Wilkin-
son, and one that it is scarcely possible to
close. A number of other breaks, but of
smaller extent, were reported at st. Sophie,
Jesuits Bend, Point a Ia Hache and at
MARTINEZ Place, ten miles below Baton
Rouge, to which relief was sent at once.
The suffering in Pointe Coupee was terri
BILE. 1t was reported that people were re-
sorting to trees for safety. Skif loads of
streets seeking safety on the hills. They GER
tainly make a sad and gloomy procession,
women, children, babies and dogs; they tell
the same tales of woe and destruction. The
situation in Bayou Sara is frightful; not a
house in town is above the aooc.
At New Orleans the east winds that have
prevailed drove the water from the Gulf of
Mexico into the lake. This, joined to the
water from the Nita crevasse, equal to one
ulUn OF Jne "nOle volume OF Cn9 DllSSlSSlppl,
raised the food level of the lake. and the
water, pouring over the ridge or through
the levees along the canal, overhowed the
rear Of the city. West End and Spanish
Fort, the two lake resorts OF New Orleans,
were foodei. The water spreading toward
the city badly overaowed the truck farms in
the rear of the city, and later in the day
Orleans, Toulouse, st. Peters and other
streets were under water, the latter reach
ing as far as Maries street.
Gentilly ridge was oyerfowed, and the
beautiful Metaree Cemetery was a lake Of
water. The mound that shelters the remains
of Jefferson Davis was an island in the sea,
while the tomb was under seven feet Of
water.
A protection levee in front of Vidalia, op-
posite Natchez, Miss, broke also, but the
whole town responded to the alarm bells and
turned out and raised the embankment, stop
ping the flow Of water into the town. At 10
o'clock the Lake Concordia levee broke, and
at dark the break was 200 feet wide and the
water %as going through like mill race.
The railroads ce6tring at New Orleans have
suffered severely by the foods. The Louis
vile, New Orleans and Texas Railroad was
cut off some weeks ago by the Nita cr6vasse.
The Illinois Central was stopped by the same
break. The Louisville and Nashville was
stopped by the food from Lake Pontchar-
train, and the New Orleans and Gulf was
severely afflicted by the several crevasses be-
low the city. Business at New Orleans has
suffered In consequence, and State and SINH