The weekly tribune and the Cape County herald. (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1914-1918, 1916-02-04
9 MEN ESCAPE
BEING NARROWED
ON AN ILL. dixie
Members of Woods COnstruc-
ton Crew Flee Ahead
Of High Water.
ALL MCCLURE SAID
TO BE UNDER BED
Rescued From East Side Bank
By Ferry-Flood Stopped
Work.

The story of the narrow escape of
he nine members of the Woods con-
,truction crew from being marooned
on a piece Of crumbling dixie, 200 feet
long and scarcely more than dozen
feet in width, two miles north of Nc
Clure, ILL.,, on the East Side, last night
was told in the Cape by the men on
their arrival here on the Ferry Boat
Gladys.
Had the men remained OH the dixie,
hey would have been stranded sew
eral hundred yards from dry land,
surrounded by water from 10 to 10 feet
ieep and supplied with extremely
short rations for the two weeks stay
hat would have been necessary.
The members of the crew were Will
liam Woods, George Woods, Pete
Woods, Bud Coats, Kent Steele, Henry
Vessels, Dutch Bears, and two others.
The men had been working on the
construction of the dixie and had but
a short distance to close the gap that
would make the dixie complete. Fri
lay night they We're warned that the
high water was on the way.
The levee commissioner, directing
he work ordered the gap sand-bagged.
The work was started, but the men be-
came alarmed as the water rose stead
ilv and fast.
They determined to pull out and go
70 Mcclure. The only means of egress
70 their position was over a narrow
~oadway on the top of make-shift
like reaching from the dry land to the
like on which they were working.
They hauled the six wagons over
that roadway, each drawn by one
horse. AS Steele got over the road
way, 4 large gap of the dixie caved
n cutting off the dixie they had left.
BY the time DIZZY arrived in Mcclure,
he water was in lower Mcclure and
vas rising. They remained in Nc
Hlure till yesterday morning when
rarly they started for the river bank,
here they hoped to get the ferry boat
70 bring them to the Cape.
As they departed. most of Mcclure
vas under water. Sunday night there
vas % inch rise there.
The party drove a mile and half
nut of the way to the farm of Joseph
Buch on the East Side an dthence went
% the farm of Charles Manice. Mr..
3uch, who is one of the levee commits
toner's, went to Mcclure at noon yes
terday and at that time. he reported
the members of the Woods party,
here were but three houses in the
town standing on dry land.
At the Manice farm, the crew dis
PATCHED Pete Woods in a skif across
the river to the Cape to get the ferry
boat to come over for the remaining
members of the crew and the wagons.
The remaining members of the crew
rorked on the dixie at the Manice
farm, laying sand bags in an effort
the keep the water off.
The river was but 10 inches from
the top of the dixie and was rising
rapidly, when they heard the whistle
IF the ferry, they reported, and were
forced to leave the place.
Lon Miles, of Mcclure, who had
'bout 30 men and women boarding at
MS place, yesterday was forced to turn
out all except the women owing to a
ack of food and room above the water
inc in which to keep them. He haC.
'our large hogs in his yard which he
-aised to a platform three by four
feet to keep them from drowning.