Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1900-04-13
WITH RESISTLESS FURY.
GREAT DAM ACROSS THE RIVER AT
AUSTIN SWEPT AWAY.
Entire Valley Of the Colorado Desolated
and Laid in waste--.Forty or More Lives
snuhed Out--- Wall Of Water Twenty -fivs
Feet High swept Through the Country.

~ Osss--- W nAi Oh Water TW0uty-n
Feet High swept Through the Country.
Austin, Texas. This city Saturday
night was in pitch darkness, with a
raging river one mile wide and swollen
Tar beyond its natural banks, roaring
and surging through all the lower
portion of the town, having spread
destruction and death in it's wake.
In addition to the vast loss to property
In this city. some forty lives have been
sacrificed and reports that como in
from tributary country tonight do not
tend to improve matters. The food
is not unlike the disastrous Johnstown
food, some years ago in that raging
river, already swollen far beyond its
capacity bore too heavily upon an i'm
mense dam spanning the river here,
breaking the dam and letting loose a
reservoir Of water thirty miles long,
half q mile vide and sixty feet deep,
to aid in carrying destruction down
the valley Of the Colorado river. On
last Wednesday night it began raining
very hard at this place and north Of
here for some 125 miles along the
watersheds Of the Colorado. 1t never
ceased until this morning and as a
final squirt there were six inches Of
rain fall within an hour during the
early hours Of this morning. All this
vast quantity Of water along the
watersheds Of the Colorado rapidly
swelled the current until by 8 o'clock
this morning, the river, which had
been rising steadily since last oven
ing, was
RISING TORRENT, t
having risen forty feet within ten
hours. After daylight this morning
1t became evident that the situation
was going to be serious. Toe river
began rising so rapidly that the inn
menss dam and all the power-houses
and contents, costing one and half
million dollars, would be washed away.
BY IL o'clock this morning there were
tons of debris piled up against the
great dam. when suddenly with q re-
port like hundreds Of cannon dis
charged simultaneously, great
wedge, twenty-five feet high, 500 feet
wide and about eight feet thick, rolled
ont of the centre section of the great
dam down the face Of the sixty foot
depth into the river below. This
wave left great gap in tho very mid
die of the dam, through which the
debris and water poured with all the
FIERCENESS OF DEMONS.
The released water poured into the
catching eight employees
1t work there. drowning every one Of
them like SO many rats in trap.
The telegraph companies at once
wired to places below here to look out
for the great wave, and runners were 9
on horses to notify those
living in the valleys below the city.
The telegraph was in sems instances
all right, but the raging waters out
stripped the horsemen and houses
were picked up and pitched about on
The surging waves ere the occupants
had any idea of What happened. In
some instances the roaring Of the ad-
ditional flood gave warning and peo-
pie few for their lives, leaving their
and household furniture to
90 down with their homes.
Within ten minutes all the valleys
o the south and West Of Austin were
illed to overfowing with water and
he southern portion of the oity trib-
itary to the river was under, while
iozens OF persons stood and saw theic
houses washed away or vent down
With them. Excitement ran riot.
A crowd Of poor white people, num-
'ering some thirty, living just below
he dam in tents, were seen at their
laLitations just before the dam broke
md have not been seen since, and it
. generally conceded that all OF them
vere swept away.
One man attempting to cross the
oadway lending to the brid ye across
he river just as the big wave rolled |
lown, failed to make it, was caught |
md he and his horse and buggy went
iown with the torrent and we're hoard
II no more.
A family Of six negroes who were
living in the valley south Of the city
we're drowned.