Race Between the Water and the Workmen at Hannibal

Hannibal, Mo., May 16, 1888

At 6:00 o’clock p.m. the river was twenty-one feet, and four inches higher than in 1881 when the levee broke, and still rising. All lower part of the city is submerged and business practically suspended. The Hannibal and St. Joe shops, the lumber-yard, the planning mills, and all the business houses and homes on Front Street are inundated, and number of families have been compelled to abandon their homes. The Sny Levee, which protects some 200,000 acres of the richest land in Illinois, is expected to break near this point at any moment and flood the entire county. In many places the water was from four to six inches above the original levee, and hundreds of men are engaged in putting up dirt, rock, brush, and sacks of sand to prevent it from washing over. The farmers are hastily removing their stock and effects to places of safety and preparing for the worst. The trains on Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway and on the St. Louis, Keokuk & Northwestern have been abandoned on account of their tracks being submerged.

Men are working night and day to protect the levee, but about all hopes are given up. Should the levee break—of which there is little doubt—the loss and destruction will be incalculable. The river is now four inches higher than it has been since 1881, with the probability of a rise of at least six inches more.