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