Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 June 1892 — WIPED OUT BY WIND. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WIPED OUT BY WIND.

THE FEARFUL EFFECT OF THE CYCLONE IN KANSAS. A Geo re of Lives Crushed Out and Over One Hundred Persons Injured The Wellington Property Damage Is Enor-mous-Harper Devastated. Wellington’s Woes. In the cyclone history of the Cyclone the worst that ever occurred, and sfas the Jlrs£ of Us kind thqt eyer struok the prosperous town of Wellington. Yesterday, figuratively speaking, Wellington people truthfully boasted that their city was one of tke best-built places of its Bize west of the Missouri River. To-day a large part of the business and residence portion is in ruins, and there are nearly a score of new-made graves in the Wellington cemeteries. On the night of the storm business men and politicians had gathered in the city hall to arrange for the proper celebration of the nation’s holiday. Merrymakers thronged to a ball at the Phillips House on Washington avenue. They chat and laugh as they lightly pass along, ever anon looking up to the lastly darkening sky. They know a storm is impending, but then Wellington had never been severely visited and the anticipation of a pleasurable time banishes all thought of danger. Along the strefets

electric lights sputter and flash and the stores are brilliantly illumined. A short time passes. The meeting at the City Hall has dispersed and the members have sought their homes for the sky has grown leaden and rain is falling; the stores have closed and in tho ballroom of the Phillips House there is music and rustling of feet and sweet smiles and confidences. Without, the wind has risen and a storm of hall is raging. The wind rises higher and to the hail succeeds rain which descends in torrents, flooding tho gutters into miniature rivers. Then comes a stillness and next a roar, succeeded by darkness, by desolation and death. The storm had developed into a cyclone and over the face of Wellington it raged, cutting, rending, annihilating. With one fell swoop it crushed out ten lives, fatally injured twenty persons, made over 100 patients for the doctors and surgeons’ skill,

while giant trees and. over 300 houses became its sport. The storm struck the city in the southwest and swept to the northeast, & large area of which is left In ruins. Here it dipped to the ground, sucking up houses and trees and carrying them away in its giant embrace; again It skipped a block, only once more to stoop as If with renewed energy and continue its course of devastation and death. Trees, lampposts and telegraph poles were torn from the ground and hurled through the sides of buildings or were twisted into fantastic shapes and crashed into the roadway, whilo entangled in them talegraph wires formed a network makfng the streets impassable. The width of the cyclone’s path was about two blocks and the brunt of it was felt in the business part of the city and in the northeastern end. It whirled up Washington avenue, twisting like a corkscrew, razing to the ground splendidly built structures and leaving untouched rookeries almost unfit for habitation. The First Presbyterian Church was one of the first buildings it touched, and this it blew to the four winds of the heavens. Part of the building was forced into the personam; without inflicting any injury on any of the occupants. The Lutheran Church, a frame building, was picked up, turned completely over, with the floor'upward, and left apparently as solid as though it had been built that way. The Elliott, Cole & Robinson block was totally demolished and the- ruins afterward took fire. The scene here was appalling in its sadness. In one . part of the building lived a Mrs. Basher and her sistet, Miss Katie Strann. The unfortunate women were caught in the wreck of their home and

fell amid the ruins. When the flames started and their forked tongues reached out to embrace them, they cried out in their fearful agony for aid. One of the firemen made a desperate effort to reach them, but his clothing caught fire and to save himself he was forced to retreat, Then came upon the scene Mr. Sasher. crazed With grief and rendered frantic by the piteous appeals of his wife. Time and again he sought to throw

himself into the flame and perish with her, but the spectators held him back. When afterward the charred bodies of the unfortunate women were taken from the rilins the reason of Mr. Sasher fled at the sight. Death and Revelry. In the Phillips House all was merriment when the cyclone struck it. Instantly there was a frightful scene. As

the building began swaying in the terrific gale the people in the crowded ballroom made a frantic rush for the doors. The stairways and halls wore filled by crazed men and women who fought with each other in their rush for the open air. Some fled into the storm and wore injured by flying missiles. Those remaining within were caught in the collapse of the building and were buried in the ruins. Their cries for mercy were drowned by tho frightful voice of the storm, and then when it passed there was silence, deep as tho tomb. It was only for an instant, however. Sensibility leturnod to many, and their voices rose from beneath the heaps of debris, wliilo many of those who had fled returned to aid In the work of rescue. This was rendered difficult, owing to tho impenetrable darkness and the torrent of rain that followed. Tho gas house and the eleotrlo plant had been wrecked, and there was no light in the city save thut which came from the lamps oarriod by those who had volunteered to bring aid to tho injured aud rescue tho dead. Six bodies were recovered from tho ruins, some of them horribly mutilated. In the hotel barber-shop one of the employes and a patron of tho place were killed together. One man, Henry Smlthers, escaped by taking refuge In a box. In one of the stairways a woman was found crushed to death, having been oaught on her way from the ball-room to the open air. Where tho ball-room was nothing was left but a heap of bricks and lumber. V&irarteft of tfie Cyclone. The cyclone wrought some remarkable freaks, crushing tho strong and sparing the weak. Perhaps tho strangest Incident of tho disaster was tho providential and miraculous escape of the child of Frank Bowers, a barber. When tho cloud demolished Bowers’ house the child was peacefully sleeping in a cradle beside Its mother’s bed. Tho house was torn to fragments, yet the wind kindly and oarefully picked up the child out of the cradle, and, with a grasp us tender as that of Its mother, oarried It

four blocks and then gently deposited It in tl»e middle of a velvety lawn. The next mo ruling the child was found uninjured crawling around the lawn and crying for Its nlcfther. The mother was killed. At the Bock Island yards twenty freight cars were standing on the tracks. Ten of these were carried In one direction and ten in another, and the two lots were found a mile apart and smashod

Into kindling wood. An engine was taken up, carried over a mile and deposited in a creek, and in one Instance a horse wis borne from its stable and dumped upon the second story of a house. Many houses were turned rightabout face, and stoves were lifted until they landed on the upper floors of houses. The old court house, a solid two-story stone structure, was completely demolished and reduced to gravel and splinters with the exception of one little frame office that a pair of donkeys could drag from its foundation, which was left standing int Act by the side of the ruins of the old court house. Several plank sid<# walks were carried Into the country for miles. In numerous instances the tops of trees were cut off as square as though they had been operated upon by a gigantic saw, and pieces of timber were shot through houses like arrows through a glass window. In one case a piece of lumber passed through a wall between a man and wife who were each reading, but they escaped uninjured. The jlroperty loss to Wellington amounts to between $300,000 and $500,000. At least 150 houses were totally destroyed and as many more partially injured. . • Obstruction at Harper. From Wellington the cyclone swept toward the small village of Crystal Bprings, which It demolished, and thence to Harper, a distance of twelve miles. It strewed this entire course with the debris of barns and houses, and with the bodies of stock. Several lives were also sacrificed. Harper stood directly in the course of the merciless storm, and felt Its full force. Of the 900 houses of the city only six escaped uninjured. Fifty buildings were dashed Into kindling wood in one pile, and the Opera House, the strongest building In Hurper,

was picked up, carried a block, and dashed to the earth, a mass of ruins. James Lind was carried 100 yards by the wind and severely injured. Nearly half a hundred persons received injuries more or less serious, while nine were killed outright, several were Injured fatally and hundreds rendered homeless. The surrounding country, In the path of tho cyclone, suffered severely, houses,

fences and trees being torn from their fastenings and whirled wildly about. At Cleveland Station two persons lost their lives. In Garden Plains the cyclono seized two brothers, carried them 200 yards, and then dashed them to the

ground. One escaped uninjured, tho other was seriously hurt.

THE LUTHERAN CHURCH.

SCENE IN THE HOTEL BALL ROOM.

A BABY’S AWFUL RIDE.

A TOY OF THE CYCLONE.

RUINS OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

WRECK OF THE HARPER OPERA HOUSE.