WEST BOTTOMS FLOODED.
Wholesale Dealers Moving to Third
Floors -- Are Taking No Chances.
Every man in the West bottoms who had a place to take his goods was moving them yesterday, whether he transported them up town or just to the second floor. No one was taking chances. The Harbison & Modica Implement Co., near the Union depot, carried heavy plows and other farm tools up to the third floor of their building, moving their offices to the second floor.
"We're taking no chances this time," said R. A. Niccolls, a sales manager. "We'll be able to do our office business if the employes have to be carried to the building in boats."
Many implement houses were pumping the water out of their basements in the morning, but most of them gave up at noon and let the water run in. One house had a gasoline engine pumping for eight hours, and still the water didn't seem to go down. Investigation revealed the fact that as fast as the water was pumped out it ran around the corner and through a crack in the pavement back to the cellar. In front of one place was tied a large boat for the transportation of the employes to dry land at the end of the day's work.
At the Union depot all preparations have been made for high water. The baggage can be carried to the second floor in a very short time.
E. J. Sanford, president of the depot company, is not frightened. "I don't see how the water can reach us," he said yesterday. "The weather men tell us that we'll be wet tomorrow, and we're all ready to receive the water when it comes, but I really do not expect any water to reach the floor of the depot."
The water was rising rapidly in the bottoms and at the corner of Ninth and Mulberry streets late yesterday afternoon a close observer could see it creeping slowly up the sidewalks.
The Armour plant is preparing for more high water by building dikes two feet high around the buildings. The doors in the walls have been cemented and it will take a rise of from four to six feet to put the plant out of business.
