Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 June 1896 — CYCLONE KILLS FIVE HUNDRED [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CYCLONE KILLS FIVE HUNDRED

Missouri’s Largest City and Its Illinois Consort Meet Terrible Calamity.

ST. LOUIS IN RUINS. Huge Buildings in the City’s Heart Destroyed. DEATH Off THE KI VEH. »- i . Excursion Steamers Are Blown Bottom Side Up. Human Beings Swept to Instant Doom Steamers Are Sunk. Buildings Blown Down, and Railroad Trains Overturned—Loss of Life Rivals That of the Johnstown Disaster Principal Bsrildings in East St. Louis Destroyed —Fire Adds Its Horrors—Millions of Dollars’ Property Damage. The city of St. Louis, torn and devastated by a cyclone, flooded! by torrents of rain and in many places attacked by fires, was Wednesday night the scene of such a carnival of death and destraction as has seldom been equaled in America. Owing to the frightful havoc of the storm cutting off almost every line of communication with the stricken city, but little information could be had, and that of a very vague nature. It ia estimated that as many as 500 lives were lost, while the damage to property is inestimable. Scarcely a building in the city but has been in some way or another damaged by the tornado. Ruin and desolation are upon St. Louis. For the first time in the history of a me-

tropoli* the terror* of a cyclone hare come upon it* avenue* and boulevard*, ravaged the business streets and brought death to hundreds. St Louis, with its 700,000 people, passed (through in one brief halfhour Wednesday night an experience paralleled only by the horror* 'of the Johnstown flood. Cyclone, flood and fire. This triple alliance wrought the dreadful havoc. The grand stand at the race track was blown down, killing 150. The east end of the great Eads bridge was destroyed and it is reported that an Alton train went into the river. Steamer* on the river were sunk with all on board. A station of. the Vandalia in Bast St Louis was destroyed, end it Is reported thirtyfive lives were lost. The roof of the Republican convention hall at St Louis was taken off. The two top storie* of the Planters’ Hotel are gon*. The Western Union and many other building* are wrecked. The city was left In darkness. Fires broke out and threatened to destroy what the wind spared, but rain finally checked the flames. At Drake, 111, a school house is said to have been demolished and eighty pupil* killed. Telegraph wires were down and it is difficult to secure information. Heavy damage to life and property is reported from other localities.

After the wind and rain had done their work, fire added Much to the storm’s loss account. Down jwires, wild current* of electricity, crushed buildings, all contributed to this element of destruction. The alarm system was paralyzed. Approaches were blocked; a $200,000 conflagration on the St. Louis side was supplemented by a dozen lesser fires. In East St Louis a mill was burned and two other considerable losses were sustained. To the enormous total the fire* added at least 1500,000. Trail of Ruin Through the City. From where the storm entered St Louis, out in the southwestern suburbs, to where it left, somewhere near the Eads bridge, there is a wide path of ruin*. Factory after factory went down, and piles Of bricks and timber mark the spot* on which they stood. Dwelling* were picked np and thrown in every direction. Busi-

nes* houses were flattened.. There was no chance for the escape of the occupants. The ruins covered bruised and mangled bodies that will not be recovered until a systematic search is made. Thousands of families in South St Louis are homeless,. practically, and the temporary hospitals •belter score* and hundred*. At the time the *torm broke the «treets were thronged with crowd* of people returning from their work. Among these the sudden fall of almost inky darknee*

penetrated almost momentarily by flashes of vivid lightning, the ominous rattle and rumble of the thunder, the torrents of stinging rain and the raging and howling of the mad tornado created a panic that made the streets of the city resemble the corridors of a madhouse. Chimneys, cornices, signs, everything that came in the wind’s way, were swept away and dashed among the frenzied people. Pedestrians were themselves caught by the wind and buffeted against the walls of buildings or thrown from their feet like mere playthings. Overhead electric wires were torn from their fastenings and their deadly coils, with their hissing blue flames, joined in the destruction of life and property. People were killed by the score and the city hospital, which fortunately escaped serious damage by the storm, was soon crowded to the doors with wounded and dying. Long before the tornado had spent itself many of the downtown streets of the city were impassable with the wreckage of shattered buildings and the strands of broken electric wire which were sputtering and blazing everywhere and had it not been for the floods of rain the tornado might have been but the prelude to the destruction of the entire city by fire. On the river the destruction was even more complete than on land. Only one

steamer out of all the fleet that crowded the levee remained above the surface of the Mississippi. The others fell easy prey to the fury of the tempest and quickly sank, in many cases carrying down with them all on board. The Great Republic, oue of the largest steamers on the river, was sunk along with others. Death List Is Appalling. Ten millions of damage to property and five hundred persons killed and a thousand injured, is what has been accomplished. Bast St. Louis is as badly damaged as St. Louis. Half a dozeu small towns close to St Louis, in Missouri, and at least two villages in southwestern Illinois are gone. There has been loss of life in each of these communities. What seemed to be three distinct and separate cyclones struck the city art 15 minutes past 5 o’clock in the afternoon. They came from the northwest, the west and the southwest When they reached the Mississippi river they had become one, which descended upon East St Louis and from thence passed on toward Alton. The day was an oppressive one in the city. There was no wind and the people suffered from the beat About 4 o’clock in the afternoon the entire western horizon was banked with clouds. These were piled one upon the other, with curling edges, yellow in tinge. A light wind sprang up and a sudden darkness came upon the city. This darkness increased until the storm broke. The descent of the storm was so sudden the fleeing women and children were caught In the streets and burled to destruction or bnried undep falling walls. Before the zzlass of clouds in the west, hanging over the villages of Clayton, Fern Ridge, Eden and Central, gave vent to their frightful contents funnels shot out from them. Some of these seemed' to be projected into the air, others leaped to the' earth, twisting and turning. Lightning played about them and there was a marvelous electrical display. Thea came the outburst Three of the funnels approached St. Louis with a wind that was traveling at the rate of eighty miles an hour.

From them and the clouds above, a strange, crackling sound This filled the air and at times was stronger than the incessant peals of -thunder. The funnels enveloped the western side of the city, and in thirty minutes were wreaking. destruction in the business heart. Men and Women, horses, all kind of fowl in the open, were picked up and carried hundreds of feet in'every direction. So irresistible was th? cyclone and so much greater in magnitude than any the country has ever previously known of, that some of the stanchest business blocks | went down before it. Structures, the pride . of mexghants and architecturally famous ■ from New York to San Ftancisco, were I lixe tinder boxes when the wind was at ; it* height The massive stone fronts caved’ in. Iron beams were torn from their fastenings and carried blocks away, as if they had been feathers. Roofs, braced and held to their positions by every device known to the best builders of any day, were torn off as if held only by threads. Telegraph poles fell in long rows, not coming down one by one, but in groups of a dozen or more at a time. A railroad train on the Eads bridge, one of the express trains of the Alton, known as No. 21, was blown over and the passengers piled up in a heap of injured. The east end of the Eads bridge, one of the most solid and finest bridges in the world, was destroyed. The other great bridges spanning the Mississippi were all injured, some as seriously as the Eads. Scores of persons wore drowned, or, after being killed on the land, blown into the water. Steamers like the Grand Republic, the City of Monroe, packet* which are famous between New Orleans and St.

Louis, were carried everywhere. Still others, after being torn from their moorings, disappeared, and have not been heard from. As a rule the smaller craft was sunk. This was particularly the case with the smaller excursion steamers, most of which had a great many women on board. Houses were blown into the river, and at one time during the worst of the blow a section of the river was scooped out and the muddy bottom shown. The water was carried blocks away ns though it were a solid. Not while within the city limits did the funnels rise and fall from the ground, as Is usually the case in cyclones in small places. There was no rebounding. Consequently whatever was in the path of the wind was either destroyed or badly* injured.

And this destruction was done in thirty minutes. The bells of the city were pealing 6 o’clock when the worst of the storm had passed. East St. Louis Rained. East St. Louis* tremendous shipping interests have received a heartrending blow. The railroad tracks were literally torn up from the right of way and scattered. Huge warehouses and freight depots were piled on top of each ofher. Long lines of box cars loaded with valuable freight were turned upside down. The telegraph offices were destroyed and miles of wire blown down.

There was a short time after the storm when St. Louis could not communicate with the outside world. Nor could her own citizens communicate with each other by any electrical means. Such a confusion and ruin in a large city was never witnessed since the Chicago fire. Breaking at the hour it did, and the night following, the work of rescue and relief was very slow. The firemen and police were immediately made aids to the surgeons and physicians of the city. Many people were burled under the ruins of their homes or places of business. The electric lights being out, searching parties in the ruin strewed streets could not go

ahead. They simply had to wait for the dawn. RECALLS THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD Story of the Disaster that Visited the Pennsylvania Town*. The catastrophe which has befallen St Louis was within a few days of the seventh anniversary of the awful calamity visited, upon Johnstown, Pa., and adjoining towns May 31, 1889, in which many live* were lost and millions of dollars’ worth of property destroyed by the floods that raged along the Conemaugh river,

bursting a reservoir covering a square mile located just above Johnstown. For weeks heavy rains had fallen in the mountains, and the resultant freshet wrought ruin and death that appalled the country. While towns were washed away, bridges destroyed and industries forced to suspend. Hundred* of people clung to their floating homes, which were swept onward upon a volume of water unprecedented in

modem history. Many people were rescued from their perilous positions in the upper stories of their homes. The Cambria iron works were destroyed and 2,000 men were thrown out of employment Five large bridges were swept away. Cam and lumber floated upon the

mad torrent AH trains on the Penney}, vania and Baltimore and Ohio railways were abandoned. Men, women and children were panic stricken. The fatality list exceeded 1.200. The water reached a depth of fifty feet, and it required prompt persistent snd heroic action to rescue the intqates of a valley in which death rode through upon a wave of merciless water. The rain descended in torrents for sev-enty-two hours. Hundreds of dead bodies floated upon the bosom of the river for a distance of fifteen miles from the scene of the disaster. Wires were down and all telegraphic communication temporarily cut off. Collieries in the vicinity were forced to suspend. The damage extended

to the properties of the Lehigh Valley and Reading railways.

THE GREAT CUPPLES BLOCK.

POSTOFFICE AND CUSTOM HOUSE.

VIEW OF ST. LOUIS, OVERLOOKING THE DEVASTATED DISTRICT.

STEAMER REPUBLIC SUNK BY THE CYCLONE.

THE GREAT EADS BRIDGE OVER THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER.

CLUBHOUSE, GRAN D STAND AND RACE TRACK, ST. LOUIS FAIR GROUND

ST. LOUIS CITY HOSPITAL, FILLED WITH INJURED.