Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 April 1890 — CYCLONE IN KENTUCKY. [ARTICLE]

CYCLONE IN KENTUCKY.

FULL REPORTS FROM THE SCENE OW THE HORROR. A Hundred Lives Lost in Louisville—Progress ot the Devastating; Storm Through Illinois and Indiana—Destruction in Other Places. Louisville (Ky.) dispatch: The yellow floods of tbe Ohio, lapping the tops of the highest levees and threatening death and destruction to the towns alonß tho river banks, met a greater horror than any to which it had ever given bir.th as it rolled on Us way to the Mississippi. In the rushing of a mighty wind a giant of the air, leaving wreck and ruin on the prairies of southern Illinois, swept up the swollen stream, and in less than three hours wrought damage which months of work can not repair, and slew scores, perhaps hundred’s of human beings. In Louisville alone at least one hundred lives were lost and meager reports or still more ominous silence indicates an awful loss of life in other towns. Whole villages are said to have been leveled to the ground; and there is reason to believe that when news from these stricken hamlets comes to the public the death-list will reach appalling proportions. First reports led to the conclusion that the cyclone which laid so much of Louisville in ruin's and the wind storm which tore its way across Illinois were not the same, and it is difficult now to explain the wide area of country visited. A general storm raged over most of that part of tne United States between the Missouri river and the Alleghanies and north of the Ohio Thursday evening, and it is probable that there were several cyclones, tornadoes, and hurricanes.

The well-known eccentric movements of cyclones would account for the wide distance between the points affected in southern Illinois and along the Ohio river, and it seems likely that the cyclone which struck Louisville and the one which a few hours earlier had whirled over the southern part of Illinois were identical. Falling upon the country a few miles east of the Mississippi between Cairo and St. Louis, it rose again into the air whence it came somewhere east of Louisville. Between these two points its course is only two plainly marked and its continuous progress established. Special dispatches show that tbe cyclone was first felt at Nashville, Carbondale, and Murphysboro, three towns lying in a line almost north and south. The extreme distance between these towns is about forty-five miles. Tearing its way across the State to Olney, not far from the lndiana Mine, it seems to have turned southward, for it was felt at Evansville,. Ind'. In the meantime, Metropolis, 1'11.,, on the Ohio river, had been half wrecked, one-person billed and several injured l , and 1 $250,000 worth of property destroyed. Up l tho Ohio the cyclone raced and, crossing into Kentucky, laid the country in ruins., Tho board of trade of Louisville hasmade a canvass of the ruined district and the estimate of one hundred' person® killed is obtained from the return®. Other estimates place the loss of life much higher, and it is not improbable that the story told by the ruin® will bear them out. The board has gone to work with a splendid courage that will command l theadmiration of the whole country to relieve the needy and repair the terrible ruin the # city has suffered. It sends out a statement that the los® will not exceed $2,000,000, and say® that though the calamitv is a great one the residents of the city feel able to cope with it unaided. That aid' will be furnished if needed or desired is evident from the ready proffers from' neighboring States and cities. It is likely that this generous assistance will be required by the smaller towns andvillages, in which the people will be less able to face tho disaster which has over'taken them.