The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-01-29
Choked Underground Rivers
and Sewers Are P|ayiing
Havoc With Streets
ONE-FOURTH OF CITY is
COVERED WITH WATER
Many Women and Children Who Re-
fused to Leave Their Homes Are
Seen In the Windows Shrek
ing For Bread.

Paris, january ga cry of agony goes
up from the people of Paris tonight.
''win the end never conner" they are
asking.
After a slow but steady rise OF the flood
waters throughout the day. the nuyial
department at midnight could only issue
a statement in answer saying that it
was probable the crest of the turbulent
flood would be reached tomorrow. The
water has begun to fall in all of the af-
f1uents of the Seine above Paris. but the
passage through the city Is clogged by
bridges and immense accumulation
of drift and the seething waters hourly
are spreading over new acres. Choked
underground rivers and sewers are burst
ing their confines and playing havoc with
the streets, swamping more cellars and
threatening more foundations of build
iogs.
story of the details of the greatest
flood that has swept Paris in centuries
would simply be a repetition of what has
gone before. Tonight the city presents
weird spectacle, the soldiers, sailors, ire
men and police hastily constructing tenn
porary walls by the light of camphres
and torches in an endeavor to keep out
the invading floods. while pickets patrol
those sections of the city which are
plunged in darkness by the bursting of
the gas mains and the stopping OF the
electric lighting plants
The situation in the Place De Ropefa
tonight is grave. The entire territory
has been roped off as being unsafe il
It said also that the new Equitable Life
Assurance society building is in danger
of collapse
Inspecting the Situation.
President Fallieres and Premier BRAND
today drove in automobiles to the flooded
suburbs, where distress is greatest,
speaking words of comfort to the home
less and encouraging the soldiers and
others engaged in salvage and rescue
work. On their return they said that
everything humanity possible was being
done to aid the stricken and prevent fur
ther ravages by the flood.
Charitable organizations are co-operat-
ing with the authorities in throwing open
their buildings and succoring refugees
Several converts and a number of pub
lie buildings have been equipped with
military cots and bedding, and trans
formed into hospitals. The Red Cross Is
performing splendid service in distribute
ing food and clothing.
Nevertheless numerous pitiful instances
are cited of women and children who had
refused to leave their homes in the sub
merged districts, shrieking from their
windows for bread
1t is difficult to prevent mental pic
ture of the geographical limits of the sub
merged area of Paris, but roughly speak
ing it is estimated that the surface inun-
dated from the Seine, which must not be
confounded with the overflow in the back
streets from bursted sewers and subter-
ranean rivers, covers about nine square
miles, or one-quarter of the city
Beginning above where the Seine en-
tiers the Notifications, every quay is under
water and practically the entire Eleventh
ACCOMPLISHMENT, the largest in the city, Is
submerged the flood extending back from
the Ouaf de Bercy and the Quai De La
Rapee. to the Place De La Nation and
the Place De La Bastie
Great Districts Flooded.
Just below as far as the Place Du Chat
elet behind the Quai Des Celestins and
the Ouaj Henry Nv, water covers the old
marsh TO a depth Of IL feet The lower
quarter OF the lie st. Louis and the lie De
La Cite, where Notre Dame is situated,
and Immediately opposite are covered.
The streets in front of the Tuileries gar
den and the museum are completely i'm
ncrsed, and the same condition prevails
in patches in the Place De La Concorde.
Thence in a rectangle bounded by the
river and the Avenue Champs Elysees, Is
a sheet of water surrounding the grand
and petit palaces four feet in depth.
Below the Trocadero the flood widens
until at Auteuil it reaches back half a
mile.
On the left bank of the Seine the water
is generally deeper in the flooded dis
trlcts Beginning above the city it covers
major portion of the Thirteenth ar
rondissement. back as far as the Gobolin
factory and thence, except for Ste Gene
We've hill, on which the Pantheon is
situated, 1t Is bounded by st. German
boulevard to point back of the Palais
Bourbon.
This district is called the Old Latin
Quarter and comprises the law courts, the
Institute Des Beaux Arts the Mazarin
palace and scientific publishing houses.
Foreign Office Surrounded.
Further below the water surrounds the
foreign office and sweeps back across the
ESp!alldue Lies lnNdilueS ana from lHdI
district to the Champs De Mars, where
the Eiffel tower stands. TRANSVERSE
streets, like I3onaparte throughout this
area, are under from two to five feet OF
water, and are only accessible by boats.
The engine room at the paper mills at
Essones. In Seine-et- Oise is being flooded
and as the mills there supply a good deal
OF the paper used by the Paris news
papers the publications in Paris are in
NJ IN cr,t ner
lCONUNUED ON PAGE l2.)