The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1907-05-11
STORM PLAYS HAVOC.
Torrentfal Rain, Accompanied by High
Wind, Sweeps Over Parish Tuesday
Evening and Crops
Suffer Considerable
Damage.

!
Suffer Considerable
Damage.
Shortly after dark on Tuesday eve
ming Donaldsongille and vicinity were
visited by a remarkably heavy rain
storm, accompanied by high north
wind and a vivid electrical display.
The rain fell in torrents from $50 to
$50 o. clock, flooding the streets, fields
and public roads, and at times the
wind attained the velocity of a gale,
uprooting trees and shrubs, razing
fences and small outbuildings, and
otherwise causing considerable dam
age in and about the town.
One of the tall iron smokestacks OF
the Donaldsonville ice factory was
literally "blown in two,'' the upper
portion being toppled over in such a
way that it now hangs suspended from
the cross bar connecting the two
stacks, and the heavy iron roof of the
ice company's oil storage tank on the
river batture was lifted completely off
and whirled through the air dis
tance of fifty or sixty feet.
The abandoned $4,000 pumping
station of the Atchafalaya and La
fourche basin levee boards, which W as
moored opposite the mouth of Bayou
Lafourche, broke loose and drifted
down the river at the mercy of the
wind and waves, finally being rescued
by tug and returned to shore.
A coal-boat belonging to the As
cension Coal Company, from which
coal was being unloaded into the ard
of the municipal power plant, filed
with water and sank at it's moorings.
The vessel contained about $500 bar
rels of second pool lump coal, valued
at 43 cents per barrel, something like
500 barrels having been taken out
before the squall arose. Luckily, the
boat went down in shallow water and
it will therefore be practicable to
recover its contents by means Of uredg-
ing without the loss of more than a
couple of hundred barrels. A dredge
belonging to the company arrived here
Thursday evening and is busily en-
gagged in the work of removing the
coal from the sunken boat.
A lighter and six loaded coal barges
owned by the L. C. Jung Company, OF
New Orleans, were torn loose from
their anchorage at Philadelphia Point
by the force of the wind and carried
several miles down stream, sinking in
deep water at various points along
the way. The barges contained APP
proximately $1,000 barrels of coal,
and will prove a total loss.
Scores of skifs and other small YES
sells broke from their landing places
and went skimming down the river,
some of them being ultimately cast
ashore, while numerous others went
to the bottom.
Although the storm wreaked most OF
it's fury along the river front, the dam
age in other directions will reach an
appreciate amount. Conservative cal
culations place the aggregate loss at
from SIS, 900 to $4,000, but this does
not include an estimate of the damage
inflicted on growing crops by the
heavy rainfall, which totalled 4.25
inches in the brief period of two hours.
Another violent thunder, lightning,
wind and rain storm was experienced
on Thursday, adding to the damage
wrought by the deluge of Tuesday
evening and rendering even more
gloomy crop prospects tHFouRuOut
this section of the state. Cotton farm
ers of east Ascension report their
crops washed away by the excessive
rains, and many of them will be COM
PEELED to replant for the third time
this season. The cane crop has also
been damaged to considerable extent
by the excess of rainfall, and the erst-
while brilliant prospects will be ma.
teriaIly impaired unless there is an
early cessation of the wet spell and a
return of clear skies and seasonable
temper atures.