El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1898-07-21
High Water.

Inc river continued to rise all 8f-
ternoon yesterday and by last night at
midnight had passed the high water
mark Of last year. 1t reached it's
highest about three o'clock this morn
ing and at five began to fall little.
Up to ten O'Clock the water had fallen
| about three inches at the headgate of
the canal.
The headgste leak was little larger
| this morning than it was last night
and the inside bank had begun to cave
in. Notwithstanding this leak is as
serted by the Irrigation Co. to have
| always been there, it was large enough
to scare them this morning, and so
| the city authorities, not wishing to
take any chances in the matter, put g
| force of Mexicans at work placing
| sand bags on the outside bank of the
| canal to stop it.
About two hundred yards above
the Santa Fe street bridge the water
began to overflow the levee this morn
ing about five o'clock, and soon the low
| triangular piece of ground between
the canal bank, the levee, and Santa
Fe street, began to fill with water
The Mexicans in the piece of ground
referred to rushed up town and notified
| the city authorities that the levee had
| broken. Commissioner Wales and a
gang of men went there and immedia-
tely began work to stop the inflow of
the water, and had about done so by
eight o'clock.
The Santa Fe bridge is we'll above
the top of the water and can easily
| stand a considerable rise before the
water will touch the stringers of the
| bridge.
The Stanton street bridge has been
| flooded. A little past the center of the
bridge the water has been flowing clear
over the flooring of the bridge. There
has been no traffic passing over this
lower bridge since lasttevening about
seven o'clock.
The water which has been washing
| hard against the White Oaks track
about one hundred yards below this
bridge, has now changed its point of
attack to place fully three hundred
yards from the bridge. Supt. Greig
and Contractor Summers stay on the
spot all the time and keep their eyes
on the treacherous stream, as it needs
watching every minute.
further down the river, near Rand's
grove, the'water is pouring in in q larg-
er stream than it has at any time before.
The Texas and Pacific round house
is full of water to the depth of about
foot on the floor. The company have
had to move all their engines out of
the house and they have a gang of men
working on their track where it cross
es the canal to keep it from washing
away.
The city authorities have teams
working down near the county road
throwing up small dyke to keep the
water from coming on up the low
ground which extends toward town
between the T. p. track and Myrtle
street. At present the water only
lacks about six inches of going over
the Texas and Pacific track in the
rear of Maj. Rand's residence When
the water gets over this track there
will be nothing to stop it from coming
up as far as the court house
A good many families have had to
move from the southeastern part of the
city already, and il active steps are not
taken immediately the water will be
up as far as First street by tomorrow
noon.
There is an old levee down in that
section that witch q little repairing
could be made to hold the water in
check for a good deal greater rise.
This old levee has two or three places
which have been cut through, and if
these cuts are stopped it will afford
good protection.
The county force are still working
Tor the protection of the inhabitants
further down the valley
Today at 2:30 p. m. the wat
err In the river was rapidly falling, hav-
Ing fallen during the morning about
fourteen inches. .v .y~r
The water in the lower end of town
Is still coming in and will continue to
do so until the river is below the hole
under the White Oaks road.