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Send F^od, Water, Is Appeal | as Eyewitness Leaves Bay
•	Section Is Left Desolate by j	Hurricane
BV \. CHAKLES WICKEB ‘'If you get to New Orleans, for God’s sake please tell the Red Cross to send some water and food over here.”
That was the last message given me as I left Bay St. L,ouis Saturday morning. The Gulf coast is desolation. At the highway and bay bridge the rise in water was estimated at better than 21 feet at the peak of the storm.
In the Waveland-CIermont Harbor section, known as the “low section,” conditions are terrible. A refugee told me he saw one woman, whose house had blown away, standing neck-deep in water.
From Bay St Louis in, the Beach Road was completely demolished. The highway was in good shape, and one could get to
the Bay by going by way of Hammond, Slidell and Pearlington when I returned here.
I stayed at the Reed hotel, along \vith_coast citizens who had taken all 'rooms by 6:30 p. m. Thursday. The last meal served was that night—no water, no gas, no electricity. The well at St | Stanislaus college was a godsend.
All of the 200-o<ld boys at St. Stanislaus survived the storm under the guidance of Brother Peter, who had the boys out i Saturday morning cleaning up debris.
i The L. & N. railroad bridge at the Bay was 30 per cent demolished. and the highway bridge was torn out at the south side. Bridge Tender Bayard was killed at his post.
Down at Cedar Point, Miss., three persons spent four hours in a tree during the storm Friday.
Brother Edmund of St. Stanislaus told me several fishermen were washed off their boat when the trawl became fouled in the propeller. They hung onto a raft floating by and finally were washed up on the highway bridge. From there they walked to land.
■	I was up at 6 a. m. Saturday ! talking to everybody I could find, and from what they told me the death toll will be more than 20—mostly in the lowlands.
Among New Orleanians at the Reed hotel were Mr. and Mrs. Ed Carriere. who tried desperately t< get to their home in the Wave land section, but had to com back because of high water.
Hr. and Mrs. Kirk Abbott Df Algiers, vacationing in Clermont Harbor, came, to the hotel for shelter.
Practically all of the business establishments along the bay side of the Beach Road in Bay St. Louis were heavily damaged. Many of them were demolished.
We heard that all of the equipment of the telephone company was water-soaked and useless. A trouble-shooter told me he figured it would be a week before service can be resumed.
Before one oil station along the highway there was a line of cars at least a mile long. It was the only gasoline oasis for miles because pumps at most stations were idle through power shortage. Only stations with hand pumps could do business.
1 Along the lowlands water was
up to the railroad tracks, five or six blocks from the beach.
Cling to Rafters
One rescuer told me of families clinging to the rafters of their houses for hours. A steel barge was washed up on land some 300 feet from the beach. Houses to the south of St. Stanislaus were floated back* several hundred feet.
Not a pier remains along the sound in the Bay section.
The peak of the storm hit Bay St. Louis about 9:15 a. m. Friday. A 125-year-old oak tree beside the Reed hotel was uprooted.
The storm did considerably less damage ,to the Slidell, Cov-ington-Mandeville area.
At the peak of the storm, a northeast wind blev/ at over 100 miles per hour resulting in tremendous damage.
High waters caused more than, 50 per cent of the ruins. Strongl winds of about 50 miles per hour continued, at various intervals, throughout the day and into Friday night.
Food and water were plenty scarce, and will continue (to be scarce until gas and electrical services are restored.
At the Reed hotel, coffee was served to its patrons and refugees until the water supply went off. The only food we had wyf supplied by a small cafe owre ’ whose business managed to sf' vive the hurricane. He wa
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to bring only 25 sandwiches for over 100 people at the hotel. Later some of the patrons managed to reach his cafe.
One resident from the Jordan -river section stopped at the hotel for shelter. He brought his outboard motor and fishing tackle with him, but was forced to abandon the balance of his belongings.
From the upper coast section, a Mr. Durfee and a Mr. Cochran dropped in at the hotel. Arising early Friday morning, Mr. Cochran saw that the water had risen up to the running board of a neighbor’s car. When he looked again, a few minutes later, he | saw that the water was almost covering the car. They immediately pan' out, covered the front of the car with oil cloth, and started out.' They spent the night at a friend’s home.
The home of Albert J. Bernard, on North Beach, was demolished. Mrs. Bernard and her three children stayed at the hotel. Two oth-, er children are away at boarding j school, and Mr. Bernard, a traveling man, upon whom she is depending to get out of the Mississippi city, is either in Alexandria or Shreveport. Both cities felt some effects of the storm. I