The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1893-05-27
A DISASTROUS CREvAssE.

Iii tO 4Ltif > tttttt @ hefAA Wv" 1890
Yielded to the pressure of the rivel
water and suddenly broke, letting {
fierce current some twelve feet deep
widening ever SO fast, over the
land.
This disastrous break was start.
ling surprise to every person in the
parish, and especially in the immedi-
ate neighborhood Of Providence be-
cause the ievees from Providence
down had been carefully examined,
raised and repaired sometime before
the water came. Everything posi-
bic had been done to ensure safety,
as far as human intelligence and ex-
perience could go.
The "Wvly levee' was cohtinu-
orsly talked of as one of the safest
pieces of embankment in East Car
roll 4; it was carefully reverted against
wave-wash and in every way consid-
cred by experienced levee men as be-
yond the reach of danger. The his
tory of the very sudden break is con-
siderable of an enigma. People
were passing along the levee during
Tuesday forenoon early, and there
were quite number of them, but
no signs of the levee giving away was
visible, until about 1890 a. M, when
Mr.. I. F Montgomery, parish sur
veyor, came riding along. He
noticed bubbhng up of water in the
road, about two thirds across, near
the ditch on the side next to the
plantation. The crown of the levee
which he had just passed over was
intact and gave no sign of being de-
fective or faulty, but the gushing out
of the water in the road kept on in
creasing in force and volume, and be-
fore any organized effort could be
effectually made to stop the leak,
there being nothing available in
the immediate neighborhood, inside
of half an hour the whole crown of the
levee was lifted up and fell to pieces,
leaving an opening that in very
few moments measured over fifty
feet and widening every moment.
Some hidden defect away down
near the base of the levee no doubt
done the disaster, which likely will
never be fully explained.
There has been many unexplain-
able breaks of this kind taking place
within the past twenty years some
attributing them to crawfsh, others
to rotten logs, stumps, roots of trees
and such things, but the desolating
results to be endured by suffering
humanity are all the same, let the
causes have been what they may.
The WHY crevasse of Tuesday will
prove the most directly destructive
that has occurred in this parish for
many years. for the reason that the
water runs directly across and meets
the down pour already filling our
swamps from the Arkansas breaks
and for the further reason that the
season is too far advanced to admit
OF successfully replanting, even if the
water should receede and leave the
land within few days.
1t is distressingly painful to at
tempt to describe the suffering and
losses that will ensue from this cre-
vase; in fact, it is not in the power
of words to depict the sudden unex-
pected desolation that prevails in its
Immediate neighborhood and the far
reaching destruction that is bound to
ensue all over the fairest portion of
our parish, where cotton and corn
was growing grandly before the Gre
vase occurred. To show to'some ex-
tent the damage done and the losses
that will he sustained, we give list
of the plantations affected by the
water from the WHY crevasse: Dee
soma, Way-a-Way, Lakewood, Hag-
gaman, Winters Field, Waterloo,
Guilliard, Herds, Blue Ridge,
Hollybrook, Homestead, Guier's,
Bank place, Live-Oak, Anterior,
Neponsett, Mounds, Pennsylvania,
Wilton, Sauveterre, Stanboul, Aisa-
tia, Outpost, Edgewood, Melbourne,
Morganna, Westland, Little Green,
South Bagdad, Rescue. Henderson,
Villa Vista, Goodrich, ulawara, Fair
view, Sycamore Grove and Mike
Morgan place. There are quite a
number Of other places not named
that will suffnr mora or loco hv tho