The Kemper herald. (Scooba, Miss.) 1875-1908, 1905-09-28
roRsTelLINc THE FLOODS:
flow the Weather Bureau Jar Predict
the Overflow of River3.

flow the Weather Bureau Can Predict
the Overflow of River5.
The services rendered by. the
Weather Bureau to the people Of the
United States are almost numberless.
Not only the daily predictions of fair
or cloudy weather, but the storm
warnings along the coasts, the frost
warnings in the fruit and vegetable
belts. crop bulletins and a multitude
of other activities, says Mr.. Gilbert
II. Grosvenor in the Century Magazine
add to the value of the service. But
in uone of its features is it more exact
on, at times, more dramatic. than In
its prediction of floods in the larger
rivers.
by long experience and close calcu-
lation the weather-man has learned to
read the symptoms predicting a rise
or fall as accurately as n physician
! can count the hearf-beats of his patient
with his finger on the pulse. He a
| posted hundreds of rain-gages in the
land which feed each river, and they,
like sentinels, tell him the exact num-
Der of inches of rain that have fallen.
To find the amount of water that will
pour into the river is then simply a
matter of arithmetic, as the weather
expert knows the number of square
miles drained by each river. He knows
how much water the channel can car
~ in a given time as nicely as his
wife knows the contents of a teacup.
He knows the strong points and the
! weak points of the river banks, so
that if the skies send more rain than
the channel can carry he a predict
where the river will overtop or burst
it's banks and drown the cattle or
flood the streets.
In 1903, twenty-eight days in ad
vance of its coming, the foecaster at
Washington predicted the time of ar
rival of the crest of the flood wave at
| New Orleans, and warned the people
| of that city to prepare for a height of
twenty-one feet. The warning was
taken at full value, the levee in the
commercial part of the city was in
creased in height by the addition of
piles of sand bags backed with an
earthen embankment, and in places
by wooden protection, and at the day
he had prophesied the water decreased
slightly by a crevasse above town rose
to a height of twenty feet and seven
| inches-a height which, but for the
protection of the temporary levee,
would have flooded at least a portion
Of the city. and would have caused
enormous loss. Yet the immense
ocean of water which caused the.
trouble had fallen Ove a territory six
times the size of New York State, and
the flood had Travelled 1000 miles to
reach New Orleans.
Cairo, near the start of the food, had
four days notice of q fifty-foot rise,
and Memphis had seven days to pre-
pare for forty feet.
Overiows were not averted, but en-
dangered property was removed to
safer ground. Millions of dollars We're
saved, most of it to people who could
i'll afford to lose.
The remarkable accuracy of the pre-
ulCllOu Is perhaps even uiOlc StlOuSIy
apparent when one recalls that at the
time there were floods in every princi-
pal tributary of the lower Mississippi,
| so that the weather man had to calcu-
late on the continual enlargement of
the eutfiowing volume of water as it
descended the channel, instead OF on
its steady diminution through elonga-
ton, as is usual.