Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 June 1896 — YEAR OF DISASTERS. [ARTICLE]

YEAR OF DISASTERS.

LOSS OF LIFE HAS ALREADY BEEN VERY GREAT. Storm*, Fire and Flood Have Bent Many Human Beings to Fearful Deaths—St. Louis Was the Beene of the Flrat Horror of 1896. May a Dark Month. Disaster has been a frequent feature of thp current year. With but five months to its credit, 1896 has written a record of destruction that will stand. It cannot be surpassed. Fire, flood and high winds have been the principal causes of calamity, and it is impossible that these could have been foreseen orrtheir results avoided. Two or three mine.horrors that have accounted for as manjr-hundred* of deaths may be properly charged to the negligence of the owners and operatives. The great weight of misfortune, however, could not have been shifted by human agency. One cannot empty a swollen river with a tin dipper or whistle down a hurricane. St. Louis was the scene of the first horror of the year. Compared with the present black misfortune that rests on the city it was as nothing. Jan. 3 a great stock of fireworks stored at 309 North Second street exploded. The building and adjacent struentres were ruined, and some six persons were killed outright or suffered such injury they died later. Thir-ty-two were seriously, although not fatally, hurt. Early in February a great storm whipped the eastern United States coast. The greatest loss was to property on shore, as the warning had beeu fluttering from signal stations so long in advance that the sailor men had hugged the docks. Four or five vessels were destroyed. Hundreds of houses and other buildings were wrecked. In the State of New Jersey the damage was the heaviest. Bridges and buildings of all kinds were destroyed. Bound Brook, a small town near the ocean, was flattened as if some monster road crusher had trundled over it. The loss of property was great, the fatalities comparatively few. Feb. 10, in Madrid, several residents of the town were killed aud much property destroyed by the explosion of an aerolite. The sky traveler went into fragments just over the city with the deadly destructive effects of many bombshells. In one factory, which was immediately below the center of the explosion, nineteen workmen were killed. Of accidents in mines, there have been three in this country marked by great sacrifice of human life. In South Carolina 180 men were killed. This was followed by the caving in of a Tennessee shaft, which resulted in the loss of thirtyseven lives. Sixty men were killed as the result of a gas explosion in the Vulcan mine at Newcastle, Colo. Seventy-six workmen in a Grecian stone quarry were killed by the blowing tip of the magazine wherein was stored their giant powder. An explosion of gas in a mine in Wales killed nineteen men and seventeen more were buried by the falling earth which was loosened by the explosion. A great flood that came down the <)equabuck Valley in Connecticut, March 1, swept away hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of mill property mid houses and drowned many persons. Similar floods in eastern New York and other Connecticut streams entailed property lasses aggregating several millions. March 28 a cyclone left a trail of death and ruin across, southern Illinois. Alton was a heavy sufferer. April 19 northern Ohio was visited by a cyclone. The loss in Sandusky County was great. Few persons were killed. Cripple Creek, the wonder mining camp, was destroyed by fire the latter part of April. On the 25th of'the month the fire broke out and destroyed nearly all the business part of the city before it was quelled. The damage was about $1,500,000. Four days later the remainder of the town was wiped but. The total loss was nearly $2,500,000. May 4an explosion of gasoline in a business block in Walnut street. Cincinnati, wrecked two buildings and killed eleven persons. More than twenty were seriously injured. Five days later fires at Ashland, Wis., destroyed five lives and many buildings and lumber. May 11 forests in the southern part of New Jersey burned. The flames swept over great areas of Cape May and Atlantic Counties. Houses and barns and live stock also burned, but no loss of human life was reported. The cyclone season opened May 13 with windstorms in Wisconsin and Illinois. The principal damage was to crops, buildings and animals. In the two States six deaths only were caused by the storms, so far as is known. The wind in’this section was but a zephyr compared with that which blew at Sherman, Texas, May 15. This was a true cyclone, aud in its path was the local baseball grounds, wherein were gathered a thousand or two people of Sherman nnd neighboring towns. More than 100 were killed and several times the number were injured. The day following Scioto, 111., a small town near Bushnell, was wrecked by a hurricane, and May 17 Kansas towns suffered similarly. Sabetha, Kan., was the most heavily injured. It was a mass of ruins. Afterward came the windstorms in Michigan, and the northern Illinois cyclone, which had not exhausted its fury in lowa’ Another and less extensive cyclone passed over southern Illinois. Thirteen persons were drowned at Cairo by the swamping of a steamer, which lay in the path of the wind. The next day but one St. Louis was in ruins. From May 13 to May 27 it is probable that 1,200 persons lost their lives in the storms which have raged in a radius of 450 miles of Chicago. The property losses will aggregate upward of $75,000,000. In the cyclone excitement three other disasters passed almost unnoticed. Blue Island, 111., nearly lost its place on the map as a town. Fire destroyed thirty six houses and business blocks May 17." On the same day the schooner Ayer and steamer Onoko collided off Racine. Five sailors were drowned. A weak railway bridge at Victoria, B. C., permitted a loaded passenger ear to fall through. Nearly 100 persons were drowned. As was said, the year has lived less than half its term and there is time for the tale of calamity to grow.