The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-12-25
On the Lowlands Outbuildings
and Crops Are Quickly
Washed Away.
SEVERAL LIVES REPORTED LOST.
Railroad Tracks Inundated and Com
munication Cut Off in Many Di.
rectionS.

KANSAS CITY, Mo-, Dec. 24.-Rain
began falling here last evening and has con-
tinued uninterruptedly since. Through
out Missouri the storm has been unusually
severe.
AT Jefferson the heavy rain last night
caused great alarm in the Usage and
Moreau River valleys. The already swol
len streams are rising, and it is feared
that the high water of last week will be
greatly augmented. On the bottom farms
fencing. haystacks, shock corn and many
outbuildings have been swept away and
many animals have been drowned. If the
rain continues for twenly-four hours
longer the river valleys will be devastated.
Several lives are reported to have been
lost along the Usage Valley. Word from
Tuscumbia, on the Usage is that more
than 900 bushels of corn within small
radius of bottom land were washed away
last night and thousands of railroad ties
and bridge timbers have fioated away.
The Usage River is now higher than it
was in 1882, when it broke the record. A
telegram says the Meramec is higher than
it ever was before. The Missouri is not
dangerously high, but is rising and prom
ises to be booming soon.
Warsaw, the county seat of Benton
County, is threatened with destruction by
floods from the Usage River. The Sedalia,
Warsaw and Southwestern passenger sta
ton is adrift.
The Missouri, Kansas and Texas tracks
have been washed away in Vernon
County.
At Clinton, Mo-. rain has been falling
the last twelve hours, and the Grand
River is rising rapidly again. The Usage
is rising rapidly at Rockville, and has
damaged the Missouri, Kansas and Texas
Railway tracks so that trains have not
crossed for two days. All communication
with the South from here is by way of
Kansas City.
The oldest inha bitant has no recollection
of such time as this before in this coun-
try. Several families who were camped on
the White Farm, near Smithfeld, Mo-,
were reported missing and supposed to
have been drowned. The Russell boys,
the oldest Is years of age, began search
for them, and finally found them, thirteen
men, women and children, on a wagon
box on hay stack with a mile of water
around them in every direction. These
lads conveyed them, two at time, in
safety to land.
At Coffeyville, Kans., the flood for the
past week is without a parallel SO far as
the oldest settler can recall.
The heavy snow of last Thursday has
gone off with rain that has been pour
ing down almost necessarily for twenty
four hours. This makes the eighth day of
continuous rain or snow. Streams are
out of their banks and great damage is
sure to result.
Cherokee, Kans., reports three inches of
water falling during the day and all the
streams out of their banks.
At Arkansas City, Kans., rain has been
falling steadily since before daylight this
morning and more water is standing in
the fields than has been known for years.
The Arkansas and Walnut Rivers are
rapidly rising.
Joseph Cummings of Tuscumbia, Mo-,
estimates that in small scope of valley
ad jacent to that place no less than 100, 900
bushels of corn in the shock were swept
away by the flood. There is no estimating
the loss of ties and timber at this time, but
it will be heavy. Thousands of ties were
on the banks ready for rafting, as no one
dreamed of such an unparalleled freshet
at this season of the year.
At Bagnell, the terminus of the Jeffer-
son City, Lebanon and Southwestern
branch of the Missouri Pacific the water
is still three and half feet deep in the
station. The telegraph instruments in the
office, after having been submerged several
days, are just above the top of the water
now. A circular track surrounds the ward
at Bagnell, and when the flood came along
a string of empty cars was run on this
track to boom in the ties. The tops of
some of these cars have been under water
for three day.
From all along the valleys of the
streams in this section are coming reports
of people driven from homes ruined by
the floods. In many instances they have
lost all of their possessions and are desti-
tute of food and clothing. 1t has been
raining for the past twentyfour hours, not
hard, it Is true, but if the rain prevails
over the territory drained by the Usage
,An- to- Sc