| ((1926-27) (the Great Flood of '26)) | | | | waters, impeding I say, since the sandbags |
| | | | were holding some of the water back at |
| Advance: The nation's newspapers read: | | | | present, yet it was an exacting flood. |
| "People died from Minnesota and Illinois in | | | | |
| the north to the Gulf of Mexico in the south. | | | | Nonetheless, the waters were over the pier, |
| 27,000 square miles were flooded. From early | | | | the levee was under several feet of water |
| September, 1926, through May, 1927; over a | | | | some houses floating out into the center part |
| million people were victims of the tragedy. | | | | of the river, others breaking up, and were |
| 650,000-700,000 people were displaced for | | | | boards floating down the river, and the river |
| many months, some for a full year. Over | | | | was rising to street level, up towards West |
| 300,000 of them were put up in tent | | | | Seventh Street, and filling the sewer system, |
| encampments." (And by the end of the flood, | | | | and starting to drawn the downtown |
| 1000-people would have died from the food.) | | | | area-slowly. The stores were all closing: |
| | | | the Emporium, the Golden Rule, Woolworths, |
| Part One | | | | Grants, and the First National Bank. On East |
| | | | Seventh Street, the furniture stores were |
| The Great Flood of '26 | | | | putting up their sofas on stilts, in fear the |
| | | | damp would ruin them, and in fear the dam of |
| Before he killed..., he licked butter off his | | | | sandbags, would break and they'd have to |
| fingers. | | | | hightail it out of there and not have a |
| | | | chance to secure their property. |
| There was in progress a great flood, along | | | | |
| the Mississippi (St. Paul, Minnesota), it had | | | | Eighty percent of the folks on the levee were |
| persisted from autumn 1926 (rain), and the | | | | unaccounted for at this time: most of the |
| winter of 1927 (snow), and its high point was | | | | folks who live on the levee were immigrants: |
| now, in the month of April, 1927. It was the | | | | Irish, Italian, some Germans and Polish, for |
| demon of all floods; it went from St. Paul, | | | | the most part, the lower class of the city |
| Minnesota, down to St. Louis, and onto New | | | | you might add. |
| Orleans, and into the Gulf of Mexico (and | | | | |
| soaked thirteen states in all). As one might | | | | The Captain had arranged one-hundred |
| expect, there were many causalities, and | | | | volunteers to sandbag the streets leading up |
| damage was on a paramount scale, along with | | | | to West Seventh Street and along West Seventh |
| social order being unmanageable, and the | | | | Street also; thus, stopping a high percentage |
| political scene, or issues unable to deal | | | | of the water that would eventually, leak, or |
| with this scope of disaster, and the | | | | roll down hill to the inner city, but it |
| consequences would be weighed and balanced | | | | wasn't working too well. |
| way into the future. But at present the | | | | |
| levees up and down the Mississippi, were | | | | Hundreds of bystanders were watching the |
| mostly being covered over with water, and on | | | | rising river, the sandbaggers: mostly, old |
| the upper levee in St. Paul, there were | | | | folks, children, dogs, women, and so forth. |
| five-hundred residences that lived on the | | | | |
| levee underneath The High Bridge, as this | | | | Floods along the Mississippi were not |
| mounting disaster was at hand. At one point, | | | | uncommon, but this one was as if Noah himself |
| the Mississippi River was sixty-miles wide, | | | | was coming up out of the dead, like a ghost, |
| wider than the widest part of the Amazon. Up | | | | up river out of deluge, 5000-years late, to |
| and down the river, some 6000-boats and men | | | | preach the word of God. If anything, it made |
| were employed to assist in rescuing | | | | a lot of folks pray that never did before, it |
| procedures; but in a little room, in the | | | | also made the church bells ring like they |
| police station near Jackson and 10th Street | | | | never did before (and all the churches were |
| sat the Captain of the Police, Captain Roger | | | | filled up with folks the clergy never saw |
| Schultz, whom this story is really about-he | | | | before), and it was going to make the funeral |
| sat there, leaning back, a spittoon to his | | | | parlors rich. God has His funny ways, that is |
| left side, he chewed tobacco, he was | | | | for sure, for He got everyone's attention, |
| sixty-years old. As I was saying, or about | | | | those who thought who needs God in the good |
| to say, he chewed and drank, among other | | | | times, thus, I think he took them away for a |
| things, and right now he was tired, and | | | | spell. |
| leaned back to rest from the impeding flood | | | | |