The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-01-28
Refugees Are Being
Massed At Memphis
banks to extend financial assistance
throughout the food regions.
Threat Of PestiIence
Continued from Page y

banks to extend financial assistance
throughout the food regions.
Threat Of PestiIence
As the waters began to recede, new
threats Of pestilence appeared In the
cities and towns ravaged by floods.
Physicians and nurses battled OUT
breaks of influenza and pneumonia
that reached epidemic proportions
In some areas. Drinking water
poisoned by the food carried dan
gers Of typhoid and dysentery.
A relief army Of 10000 spread
over the stricken area, bringing aid
to terror stricken refugees and fight
ing to prevent disaster TO low lands
below Cairo.
The death count showed:
Kentucky, 1870; Illinois, 6; Arkan-
sas, 20; Missouri, IA; West Virginia,
10: Indiana, IL; Tennessee, 8: Penn
sylvania. 3; Ohio, Is; Mississippi, 4.
Thousands Of soldiers, CCC work.
ers and volunteer citizens toiled to
bolster the vast levee system from
Cairo to the Gulf. Memphis be-
came the base Of relief operations.
The Red Cross made preparations
to care for $4,000 refugees in con-
centration camps around the city.
Reassure Residents
At New Orleans, State Engineer
Harry Jacobs sought to reassure res
idents who read with fear, reports
Of the army's evacuation prepara-
tons. He quoted Maj. Gen. Ed
ward Markham, chief of engineers
in Washington. as saying that no
excavations were contemplated south
of Arkansas City, Ark.
Present indications are that the
Qevee) system will withstand the
strain" was the reassuring word sent
out in an official army bulletin from
Washington.
Nevertheless, corps area command
ers were instructed to build UP a re-
lief organization that could snap
into immediate action y the waters
showed signs Of breaking through
the artificial barriers. Because the
flood waters moved slowly, the army
had time to mobilize its forces.
Save City Of Cairo
Two thousand men apparently
had succeeded in saving Cairo from
demolition. The city, nesting be-
hind a 63-foot sea wall at the con-
fiuence Of the Ohio and Mississippi
rivers, had been In a precarios po-
sition. Most Of Its residents had
fed. The men worked day and
night to bolster the wall. Engineers,
noting that the food waters remain
ed stationary or nearly so, believed
the threat had ended.
But at Mounds and Mounds City,
a few miles north, Of Cairo, the
levees cracked and the waters
poured in to inundate the two small
towns. Three were drowned.
Communication was reestablished
with Paducah, KY, which had been
since the flood began. Tel
ephone operators said the waters
still were rising but that residents
had fled from danger zones. They
told OF numerous instances Of loot
ing but said 1T seems that nat
ural thing to do"
Recede at Cincinnati
Waters were receding at Cincin-
natl and the city prepared for re-
and disease prevention.
Newly-tapped artesian wells relieved
a threatened water famine, but resi-
dents wer warned to boil all water
before using 1t.
The Monongahela and Allegheny
rivers at Pittsburg had receded,
leaving a film of mud and silt over
the streets. Wheeling, w. Va, also
was cleaning up" after thousands
had been made homeless by one of
Its worst floods.
Terror-stricken residents of Louis
vile, the worst food sufferer, were
cheered by Mayor Miller's an
that the Ohio river had
started to recede Slowly" Ma
tional guardsmen and police and
firemen sent from other cities pa
trolled Louisville's food area.
ut Is natural that the death rate
should rise above normal under food
conditions with medical and sani-
tary facilities crippled" the mayor
said in a nationwide broadcast, but
evacuation was so we'll handled, I'M
der the circumstances, that any big
figure you hear purporting to be
the number Of drowned Is rumor
and not fact"
Many Wild RumOrs
He said many wild rumors are
circulating, among them one which
places the death toll from the food
at above 300." 80 far as we have
been able TO ascertain, there have
been no mass drownings and no
great number Of casualties from the
food ITSELF"
The 600 federal troops from Fort
Benjamin Harrison which took over
police duty In the central business
district when regular police were
near collapse from working days
and nights without sleep, will be re-
lieved and assigned to relief work.
Engineers based much Of their