CATASTROPHE: Flood Continued

At Melville. One evening last week some 1,000 residents of Melville, La., went serenely to their beds. Doubtless most of them gave their last waking thoughts to the flood waters bearing down from the north. Yet they were hardly excited, much less panic-stricken.

True, "M'sieu Jean" (their name for onetime Louisiana Governor John M. Parker, now directing flood relief) had given danger warnings, had urged them to leave their homes and to gather in refugee camps. "M'sieu Jean" was a good man, a fine man—but perhaps a little inclined toward alarms. When one's fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers have lived in the same village and furrowed the same earth, one does not take oneself away without good reason. Floods ? There had always been floods, there would always be floods. Every spring the rivers rose and frightened strangers. True, this flood seemed to be worse than usual. Later on, perhaps, they might have to fight day and night against the waters as they had fought against them before. But the danger was still far to the north. That, without even fighting, they should abandon their homes, gather in refugee camps, become objects of charité— well, a fine man, a great man was "M'sieu Jean," but just a little bit an outsider, hardly quite able to realize how very many seasons of high water they had seen come and go.

So the people of Melville went to bed. At daybreak next morning the Melville levee along the Atchafalaya gave way. Soon every street in Melville was a roaring torrent. Scrambling from their houses, lacking time even to clothe themselves, men, women and children half-waded, half-swam to unbroken sections of the levee. Five hours later Melville was from 10 to 15 feet under water with most of its houses sweeping in fragments toward the Gulf.