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<br />page 12 <br /> <br />At 2: 30 0' clock the water was a foot deep in the yards of the <br />W.C. Harris ranch rented by Robert Montgomery. <br />Hundreds of acres of beets in the flats about Logan, in <br />the Pawnee valley, and around Atwood were flooded and perhaps <br />ruined. Parts of the Union Pacific railroad track near Atwood <br />were washed out and train service will be interrupted for <br />several days. <br />Concrete Spillway Collapses <br />The flood was the result of the breaking of the concrete <br />spillway at the intersection of the intake ditch of the North <br />Sterling reservoir and Pawnee creek. The intake ditch at <br />this point is flumed over the creek bed. The waters rose to <br />such a point between 2 and 3 o'clock this morning that a ditch <br />rider warned the people living in the land below, €Lnd many <br />people hurriedly took what belongings they could and went to <br />higher ground. About 200 yards of the spillway which is nine <br />miles west and two miles south of Sterling, was swept away and <br />the great mass of water rushed down Pawnee valley, covering a <br />strip varying from a half mile to a mile and some ten or <br />twelve miles long, with muddy water. Beet workers' houses <br />were flooded and many of the more substantial homes were <br />endangered. The intake ditch also was filled to capacity and <br />under the pressure it broke in five places within a distance <br />of a mile and a half. <br />It is estimated that at least 400 acres of beets in the <br />Pawnee valley district were flooded, and that around 500 <br />acres in the Atwood district were flooded. <br />Railroad Is Inundated <br />When the water reached the Union Pacific railroad bridge <br />at Atwood, its volume was so great that it could not pass <br />under the bridge and the embankment gradually gave way. The <br />bridge could not be approached this afternoon, but it was <br />estimated that for a distance of several hundred yards around <br />the bridge the track was either washed out or undermined. <br />Another gap thirty or forty feet wide was washed at a point <br />north of the bridge. This afternoon the flood water had <br />found their way around the sandhills at the north side of <br />Atwood and the place of W. F. Coverdell and the feed lots <br />near the town were covered with water from six inches to a <br />foot and a half deep. It was thought at this time, however, <br />that the water was receding and that no damage would result <br />in the town. <br />A bridge crossing the road running north froDl Atwood, <br />about two miles from the town, was washed out. Other bridges <br />in the flooded area also were washed out. One was carried <br />for miles down the stream and lodged against the bridge on <br />the twelve-mile lane. It could not be learned where this <br />bridge came from. Approaches to the Burlington bridge at <br />Logan were washed out and the bridge was left standing in a <br />waste of muddy water. <br />The Springdale ditch also broke its embankments today, <br />and it was the water from this ditch that approached to <br />within a mile of Sterling. The water filled the public road <br />as a long lake, from Atwood to within a mile of Sterling. <br />Large numbers of Sterling people drove out to the road this <br />afternoon. R. H. Bruce, driving a large coupe, left his <br />