The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-08-23
thousands of farmers and villagers
are homeless
Great Area Water Swept.

lHouSdnuS OF farmers ana villagers
are homeless.
Great Area Water Swept.
In Greene and Jersey counties,
illinois, from ten to fifteen thousand
acres of farmland are under water
as the result of the breaking of three
ievees, while in Madison and st. Clair
counties, all rivers and creeks are
flooded TO the point of breaking their
levees.
All these conditions are due to a
branch of the Texas coast storm,
which last Friday swept through Ar
kansas into Missouri and across the
Mississippi river to Illinois. St. Louis
had hardly recovered from the eff
fects of the tornado and its accom-
panying record breaking downpour
Saturday, when the River Des Peres
went a mile out of its banks and upon
receding disclosed II dead. Before
the Des Peres had fallen to its normal
level, the Meramec river, ten to fiji
teen miles west of this city, went two
to four miles out of its banks with
much more disastrous results.
Club House Swept Away.
The Meramec rose during the night
while thousands of campers and pic
nickerS slept in the club houses and
summer cottages which dot the river
bank From ? o'clock yesterday morn
ing until midnight the river rose a
foot an hour. The flood waters of
swollen Ozark small streams which
ing down the Meramec in layers a foot
high, tearing farm houses, club
houses, bridges and barges from their
moorings and hurting them against
trees, telephone poles and against
each other in the mad race toward the
Mississippi river.
Men, women and children, caught
in the whirl of debris, screamed, dis
charged firearms and climbed to their
housetops to attract rescuers. Calls
for help were sent to ST. Louis and
hundreds of rescuers with motor boats
and other craft were on the scene at
daybreak. They toiled all day yester-
day and all last night and rescued 600
persons.
Still Call for Help.
This morning in a few cases men
and women who had climbed to tree
tops and roofs still were calling for
help. Scores of these had spent "a
hours or more in the trees. dressed
scantily and soaked to the skin.
Valley Park, Drake, Eureka, Clin-
ton, Pacific and every other city on
either side of the Meramec for a dis
lance of more than fifty miles were
inundated, but this morning the water
began to recede.
Train Traffic Demoralized.
More than a hundred miles of ter
ritory in the heart of the Ozarks be-
tween Springfield, Mo-, and st. Louis
is cut off from communication with
either city; and as a result, the hum
dreds of persons spending weekends
in the club houses and camps along
the Gasconade and the Meramec,
could not return to their homes today.
The st. Louis & San Francisco rail-
road Sunday expected to send special
trains from Springfield to st. Clair,
fifty-siX miles west of st. Louis, and
take out the resorters, but was forced
to abandon this place because of the
rise in the Gasconade. That river
went thirty-two feet above it's normal
stage. The Frisco bridge across the
Gasconade at Arlington, Mo-, was re-
ported unsafe.
Through trains into and from ST.
Louis over the Frisco could not be
operated today either over the main
line to Oklahoma and Texas or over
the Memphis line. Frisco trains from
the south were brought to st. Louis by
being detoured through Kansas City
and thence over the Wabash. A Frisco
train for Springfield, Mo-, Joplin, Tex
as and Oklahoma will leave st. Louis
each night, but it's exact route has not
been determined! "A train for Mem
phis will leave here each night, being
sent down TIC east side of the Missis-
Si