The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-09-29
BY WILLIAM F.. COLLINS
Times Special Writer

many levees and 1 have seen
a good one yet. In Stoddard coun-
ty, Mo, a hopeful citizenry issued
bonds for a half million dollars,
which was about a half million dol
lars more than they could afford
and erected a levee along the st.
Francis river from the height of
ground on the north to as far
south as their money held out.
The next flood the st. Francis
stayed out of Stoddard county, but
its neighbor, Butler county, on the
west bank, discovered new high
water marks on its barn doors after
the water went down. Then Butler
county bonded and built a levee
eighteen inches higher than the one
over by Stoddard county and then
things really started happening in
the flood line.
Confined between two tall levees
in a narrow channel where in for
mer years it had an unlimited
spread, the river ran riot. The
population ran riot with it.
Dynamited at Night
The lower Stoddard levee passed
out without a squeak, the Butler
levee was dynamited in the dead of
night by ''vandals." After the
spree, a lot more levee had to be
built and some old leyee remade.
A pooling of the money that built
both of these levees would have
gone a long way toward erecting a
permanent system of flood control
on the headwaters of the st. Francis.
In 1913 1 stood at a point on the
Mississippi river that is now 200
yards out in the channel of the
river. On that point was erected
the terminal facilities of the Cairo,
Poplar Bluff division of the Missouri
Pacific railroad. There was $300,0 900
worth of everything that could be
erected by government engineers
over a period of years placed along
that river front to hold the bank.
Behind the town that does not
now exist, was a levee that looked
like a small mountain range. The
river shot the whole works M drab
night and still more drab day when
the great flood of 1918 rolled its
way out to the Gulf.
1t has been realized more potently
than ever before that one good
loxroa Iacorxyae anOfhor Anu ctroan m
confined within a levee starts build
ing it's channel higher and higher.
At Cairo and at various other points
along the Ohio river and the Mis-
Sissippi where the rivers have been
confined over a long period, the
channel is now a virtual causeway
above the surrounding land. When
this condition comes into existence
the engineer starts another system,
Just about as expensive as the
original levee.
Where to Control Floods
1 have stated that the place to
control floods is where they fall,
not where they go. To leave the
Wabash and the White from end to
end wherever the damage from
flood water occurs will take all cf
the money Mrs. Virginia Jenckes
has procured from the government
now and in ten years from now,
I hope she is still our congress-
woman then. She will have to battle
through another $4,000 900 appro-
priation to build our levees higher.
With this $4,000, 900 a very prac-
teal start car be made in Indiana
to control floods in a manner SINH
lar to the Dayton system.
In the Wabash river at the rock
narrows above Georgetown, We
want a hydro electric dam. Samuel
insult in his prime contemplated the
erection of a dam there similar to
the two he built on the Tippecanoe
river.
This hydro electric dam at
Georgetown either can be state Or
government-owned just so it will
tie us into the chain of electric tur-
rent that now flows so Sweetly out
of Muscle Shoals at 3 cents a kilo-
watt hour.
II is the consensus that three
small dams on the Salamonie, four
on the MiSSiSSiniwa, two OF the Eel
and one big electric generating dam
at Georgetown on the Wabash will
control completely the floods of the
Wabash and make it unnecessary
to erect more or larger levees along
the lower Wabash.
Setup Suggested
A similar plan is just as well
founded for the White river basin,
with one large generating dam near
the last rock outcrop. the final To-
cation TO be decided by the govern
ment engineers. These two state
or nationally owned dams. one in
southern Indiana and one in north
ern Indiana. will tie in well with the
high line out of Muscle Shoals, that
soon will enter Evansville and for
ever end the burden of electrical
taxation thrown upon us by the In
sui regime.
Eighteen million dollars will carry
this program we'll on its road to
completion. The profit from the
~hydroelectric dams will maintain
the entire structure and add to it
when and where needed. The two
insult dams on the Tippecanoe
we're built at a cost estimated by
seventeen reliable engineers to be
less than s4,000.000.
The two dams. one on the Wabash
and n on the White. will be the
major items of expense; thereafter
their income can be used TO aug
ment the sum needed to bring
about lasting flood control within