tion had left
the city. They were chiefly women and children.

SITUATION HOURLY WORSE

On the evening of April 2d, the city was in a state of anxiety never
before experienced. The river gauge at 6.30 o'clock stood at 54.4, a
stage three-tenths of an inch higher than any previous record.

The inundation of the drainage district north of Cairo was complete. The
flood waters were on a level with those in the Ohio River, and were
prevented from flooding into the Mississippi only by the Mobile and Ohio
levee. There were from 7,000 to 9,000 acres from seven to twenty feet
under water. The greater number of industrial plants in the section were
submerged up to the second-story windows, and many houses were
completely under water. For more than a mile beyond the Illinois Central
tracks and for several miles to the north from the big levee surrounding
the district from Cairo there was nothing which was not touched by the
vast field of water.

Offers of relief, which were made by the Chicago Association of Commerce
and the city of Peoria to Cairo, on April 5th, were accepted. The
Chicago organization offered eight boats and sixty men to man them. From
Peoria came word that a steamboat equipped for life-saving purposes was
waiting for a call to Cairo.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE FLOOD IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY

FLOOD OF THE MISSISSIPPI INEVITABLE--SOUTHEASTERN MISSOURI
THREATENED--BAD BREAK IN LEVEE AT HICKMAN--STRENGTHENING THE
LEVEES--MEMPHIS IN PERIL--DANGER ALL ALONG THE LINE--RIVER AT RECORD
STAGE--RISING HOPE--A NATIONAL PROBLEM.

On March 30th the Mississippi Valley was facing one of the worst floods
in its history, and the steady advance of the river threatened a large
section of country. The breaking of the levees along the Mississippi
itself, an inevitable result of the great floods in tributary streams,
had already begun. The district below St. Louis was a foot or more above
the flood stage, although the big rise had not arrived. Preparations
were being made to withstand a flood equal to that of 1912. Although the
levees had been made higher in some places, it was not to be expected
that they would be strong enough all along the river from St. Louis to
the sea. In the lower sections of the Mississippi Valley it was feared
there might be a repetition of the recent disasters in Ohio.

At Charleston, Missouri, on March 30th, the flood conditions were
growing more acute every hour. The city was filled