The Sentinel=record., 1912-04-14
SUFFERING IN FLOOD DISTRICT
 INCREASED BY WATERS SPREAD

| io u"F, anu tHS SuAiSilnS dHlOhS lHeSe will be acute.
 The United States government has been urged to rush tents and supplies to this section.
 The Dog Tail crevasse tonight is more than 1000 feet in width and no human agency can stop the. on-rush Of the waters until it has inundated a large part of an area 80 miles in length and varying in width from eight to 26 miles
 The water will cover the southern half of East Carroll, three-fourths of Madison, at least two-thirds of Ten sas and a small portion of Concordia parishes. which comprise the fifth levee district. Approximately 1,2OO,- | 900 acres will be submerged.
 The absence of the reports of loss of life is due to the precautions taken by the levee authorities to warn the people of the low country As soon as the break came, the news was flashed throughout the territory by telephone, the couriers carried tne warning message on horseback into the plantations. and the villages re- mote from wire communication. The water from the crevasse prob ably will have Tallulah surrounded by morning. The entire town, with the exception of the high ridge along Round-a-Way Bayou, probably will be submerged. Many families will be forced to move out of their homes, but there will be no loss of life here.
 Last nights creyasse occurred at the river bend near Alsatia, La. 20 miles north of Tallulah and 45 miles south of the Arkansas state line. The full effect of the rushing waters, | the roar of which could be heard for miles, was felt in the little town Of Roosevelt on the Iron Mountain rail road This town tonight is under six to 12 feet of water and the inhabi. tants were marooned on the highest l spots awaiting the arrival of reescuing parties, when the last word came from l there.
 The greatest loss in that immediate vicinity probably occurred on the large plantation of John M. Parker. the New Orleans cotton merchant and political leader His plantation was directly in the path of the rushing waters and it is reported practically all of his cattle were drowned. Many people have been driven from their homes in small towns south of Roosevelt. but in each of these there are high spots where the inhabitants 1 can tage refuge until boats can reach them
 President J. T. McClelland of the Tensas levee board tonight gave the associated Press the following state ment on the situation:
 There will be no loss of life from the Dog Tail erevasse, but the live stock loss will be enormous. Be- cause of the boil weevil situation there will be no crop of cotton raised in the affected territory this season. therefore the devastation which the floods will bring means added suffer ing and distress
 "Five-sixths of the people through out the overflowed fifth leyee district are negroes and simply live from day to day. With their work cut off,
 their credit on their crops for this | season destroyed, and with no pros pect for relief from local conditions, their suffering will be acute and i'm. mediate action should be taken by the government to furnish tents and supplies and temporarily care for these poor people until such time
 as they can secure some means of | livelihood.
 The same conditions prevail in the
 Tensas basin district, west of Bayou
 Macon Ridge, which is flooded, or will
 be by this break, and the breaks
 north of the Arkansas state line or
 the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers
 In this latter district, however. is 3 small proportion of negroes, the ma | jority of the inhabitants being white
 entirely dependent upon their daily
 labor for their living"
 The stage at which the levee gave way was the highest water on record being IF feet in excess of the pre- , vious high record at Lake Providence | and at the breaking point was tw' feet higher than in 1903. when tn } leyee gave way at Holly Brook. fiv
 miles south of the Dog Tail crevasse Seek Federal Aid. Vicksburg, Miss, April i3 Repre- } sentative Joseph E. Ransdell of Lou