The weekly tribune and the Cape County herald. (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1914-1918, 1915-08-27
A. c. King, Contractor, Finds
Son Asleep as Bear Creek
Freshet Approaches,
HUMAN CHAIN RESCUES
TWO YEAR OLD CHILD
Babes Mother Walks 50-fOOt
Tree Trunk to Safety
Over Torrent.

IN their home IN the Bear Creek valley
last Friday night when the water rose
several feet to their home within a
few hours, last night was related at
the Terminal Hotel by A. C. King, of
Zalma, drainage contractor.
The young wife and her child were
rescued from the flood after a thrill
ing trip a half mile long up to the
mems waists in water. The road to
safety for the mother and baby lay
over an old-fashined foot bridge made
of a tree trunk thrown over a deep
ravine and spanning a place so feet
wide where the waters swirled more
than Is feet deep and a mis-step
meant death.
King, who is in charge of the work
of clearing part of the right-of
for the drainage canal in the vicinity
of Zalma, Greenbrier and Brentwood,
Friday afternoon went to Brentwood
where he met a friend working on the
ditch, who told him of the rising water
in Bear and Perkins creeks that had
been forecasted.
1t has been rumored that the water
in Bear Creek was rising more than a
foot an hour. King declared he imme-
diately thought of his sons family on
his own farm opposite Greenbrier,
about and a half miles away.
He hired a railroad hand-car and
two men to aid him, and together the
men set out to run a race against the
high water which was approaching, en-
deavoring to reach his sons home in
time to warn him of his danger and
get away before the flood arrived.
He had telephoned to his home in
Zalmo before leaving Brentwood.
When they arrived in Grienbrier, the
three men sprang from their hand-car
into water that was swirling about
their hip-boCts and rising rapidly.
They crossed to Kings farm as night
fall was coming on, and on their ar
rival at the farm yard, the water was
approaching the house.
The place appeared deserted. They
investigated the stable and found the
stock there. Their first presumption
was that warning had come and the
son, Otto King, had escaped with his
wife and child.
The elder King, however, went to
the window of the house and shining
his lantern inside the bedroom, saw the
three sleeping.
He aroused the son and quickly adj
vised him of the approaching danger.
Two of the men, together with the
husband, then started from the house
with Mrs. King and the elder Kings
grandson, 2-year-old Ryan, in the
arms of one of the men. The water
then was more than a foot deep. The
elder King remained at the house to
care for the stock left behind.
The party was making toward a
high bluff several hundred yards away
where they would be safe from the
flood. The bluff was separated from
the bottom land by a deep ravine at
tho hl1ff'c foot Tbo ,,ox,;,o x,yoc obo,,+
so feet wide and Is feet deep.
A foot-bridge had been made across
this place by telling large hickory
tree on the edge of the ravine, so that
the branches of the tree fell on the
top of the bluff. The bridge made
more disable by stretching a wire
across as hand-rail. 1t sloped at
As degree angle.
AS the young husband and wife ap-
preached the bridge on the edge of the
ravine, the elder King saw a wall of
water three feet high approaching. He
and his companions raced across the
llS IeiilSC 1IOIil IllS iIOuSS W the IOOL-
bridge ahead of the water wall to
warn the party.
The flood overlook them before they
reached the bridge and all waded waist
deep to the end of the bridge. The
end of the tree was buried in the
water.
AS the party approached the place
where they believed the end of the log
bridge should be, they formed human
,hain by clinging to one another for
safety. They had no way of telling
where the edge of the ravine was and
he 15-foot step-off.
When they were a short distance
away, a man named Dolph Bullinger, |
,rawled down on the foot bridge from |
he top of the bluff and waded out on
he water-covered end as far as he