Evening star., 1927-05-04

to Shell BeaCh, on Lake Borgne. 1t
serves a great industrial field to the
south of the city as well as a large
| canning and trucking territory.
Only One-Fourth Above Water.
After the inundation of st. Ber-
| nard and Plaquemines Parishes are
complete, only about one-fourth of the
| line will be left out from under water,
| this being Immediately south of New
| Orleans, where the road serves a ship
| building plant, stock yards, the Amer
| lean Sugar Refizery, reputed the
largest in the world, and the great
storage plant of the Sinclair Oil Co.
| of Louisiana.
Dependency born of inactivity has
settled over the refugees from st.
Bernard and Plaquemines Parishes,
whose farms and trapping preserves
were desolated by the angry Mfssis-
sippi that New Orleans might be
| spared it's wrath.
| In the haste and strenuous action
| of a hurried evacuation there was lit
| tie time for sorrow. All energy went
| into the hasty removal of household
| furniture, live stock and children.
| Many Of the residents of the two par
ishes postponed action until the last
| moment, hoping that their homes
| Then, protests failing, they Bundled
| belongings into such vehicles as were
available, took a last look at their
| homes through moist eyes and jour
neyed to New Orleans.
Inactivity Is Irks0me.
| In the days that have passed,
| however, there has been plenty of
time for thought. Men sit quietly on
| the white iron beds of the refugee
| barracks. The inactivity of indoor life
| after the freedom of the fields and
1 marshes is irksome. Few care to read.
/ Sometimes they stroll down to the
front of the massive, barnlike strue-
/ ture and stand solemnly at the en-
/ trance. Less frequently they wander
| aimlessly about the city.
| The younger ones chatter away,
| sometimes with references to their
4 homes at Poydras or Shell Beach, at
| DE La Croix Island or Braithwaite
/ Pictures and vaudeville perform
ances given by local talent and by pro-
fessionals from local theaters are
staged regularly.
Many Still i'm Area.
While several thousand of the in
habitants of the two parishes fed be-
fore the approach of the flood created
by the artificial crevasse, a good pro-
portion have refused to move, pre-
ferring to take their chances in land
they know to adyenturing in a city
comparatively strange to them.
Most of those who have remained
are trappers and their families. They
are familiar with floods and the
muddy waters hold no terrors for
them. Their homes, for the most part,
are built on raised platforms on the
banks of the myriad small bayous in
the marshy land, which rarely pass a
Spring without overf1owing.
| No especial preparation for the re-
ception of the flood waters was made,
in most cases. When the trappers
heard that the 1evee was to be broken
and had been persuaded from armed
resistance, they passed it off with a
Let 'er bust" and shrug.
Every family in the lower section
has from one to a dozen pirogues, a
small canoe-hke boat. These are used
to make the round Of traps and will
be used in the present emergency to
j bring in supplies. In addition to the
pirogues, most of the families possess
small shanty boats, which the trap
pers live in during the season and use
to move about along their trapping
lines Now these will become the
only homes of many of the residents.
| 100000 Acres Covered.
Every parish in northeastern Louis.
lana for the first two tiers along the
river, extending 10 parishes down.
stream to the mouth of Red River,
has felt the grasp of the waters
which already have covered 100000
acres of land and rendered more than
100000 homeless as they moved upon
the Gulf of Mexico.
The 10 Louisiana parishes already
covered either entirely or partially,
We're Morehouse, Carroll, Quachita,
Riehland, Madison, Franklin, TensaS,
Catahoula, Concordia and AvoyelleS.
Water streaming from four breaches
in Mississippi River levees was NOV
ing down to join backwaters from
the Red River, while flood waters
from the Quachita and the volume
released by breaks fn Arkansas COW
cred other portions of the territory.
Tallulah virtually was abandoned
as its population fled to Vieksburg
and Delhi before a lake released by a
break in the Mississippi embank-
ments near Milliken's Bend. Resi-
dents Of st. Joseph and Waterproof
/ spent a sleepless night awaiting the
jingle of telephones which would tell
them that the Villa Clara levee had
been smashed.
Train service on the Vicksburg
Shreveport and Pacific Railroad was
annulled and all equipment not pressed
into relief service was removed from
the territory. Many of the people
in the path of the Millikens Bend
Crevasse had been preparing for the
1 nss5.N fyyn we
thought to be out of the area.
Delhi, located on ridge west Of
Bayou Mason, was a place of refuge
Continued on Pan Z, colunan &,