Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 100, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 March 1917 — GENERAL AND STATE NEWS [ARTICLE]

GENERAL AND STATE NEWS

Telegraphic Reports From Many Parts of the Country. SHORT BITS OF THE UNUSUAL Happenings in the Nearby Cities and Towns—Matters of Minor Mention from Many Places. TORNADO SWEEPS NEWCASTLE Many Killed, and Property Loss Reaches $1,000,000. Newcastle, March 13.—The toll of the worst 'tornado ever known in Indiana, which struck this city at 3:05 o’clock Sunday afternoon, was nineteen known dead this motnlng with a possibility that later developments will increase the death list. Although reports are not yet definite, it is believed the list of injured will reach 100, some of them seriously and many slightly. It was impossible early today to estimate the property damage but a conservative estimate is close to $1,000,000. Fully 200 houses were destroyed and a large number of buildings damaged. Many persons who were uninjured are homeless and many have lost all they possessed.

The severest blow of the tornado was felt in that part of the -city where lived the poorer class of people, many of whom were employed in factories and were paying for their homes on the installment plan. Soldiers are guarding the wrecked property, but martial law- has not been declared. A large corps of physicians from Indianapolis, Muncie, Greenfield, Richmond and Anderson are in the city assisting in the work. There also are mdny trained nurses on duty here. After a sleepless night, Newcastle faced realization today that it is indeed a windswept Verdun. Roses and rooftops were kindred debris, and the rich man’s heavily tufted divan was as much a wreck as the high chair of the humble man’s baby. The belongings of all in the stormswept district were scattered over streets and commons, and there were many incidents that proved that men are hind w'hen sorrow comes. After sweeping through Newcastle, the tornado whirled about

the surrounding country, scattering farmhouses here and there and playing havoc in Hagerstown, eighteen miles southeast of here, where four persons were killed. The tornado struck from the northwest, completely demolishing the Indiana rolling mill, a half mile west of the city. The wind followed a southeasterly direction, destroying everything in its path. The greatest loss of life and property occurred between Twentysecond and Twenty-sixth streets. The wind took a clean sweep through the path described, andvnlike the usual tornado, did not damage property in one spot, then leap over homes and buildings only to pounce down on property farther along in its path. The tornado whirled into the city, spreading destruction under the pall of a blackened sky, and had it not been for the fact that its approach was detected before the fifteen or twenty seconds that covered its visit to the city, hundreds of persons would have been crushed in the shattered timbers of their homes.

Hearing a low, rumbling noise, augmenting in volume and likened by some to the noise of a heavy train crossing a trestle, citizens looked from their windows to seea fierce-looking black cloud bearing directly toward the heart of the city. Warning one another, thousands of persons were successful in reaching their basements before the crash came. Weird tales of hair breadth escapes were related on every side, scores of citizens declaring that they jumped down basement stairs, in many cases with children and infants in their arms, just as their homes were torn from over their heads. A few minutes after the tornado had ceased its destructive work, the citizens of Newcastle, terrified and in tears, set stoically about the task of rescuing the injured and of caring for the homeless. Fire, the other terror of nature that frequently follows such a storm, did very little damage. Only two fires of any consequence were reported and these burned only the ruins of two homes and one business building. These fires were extinguished qjuickly. A careful check of the tornadotorn section of this city, made by Coroner J. F. Drake, resulted in the placing of the number of known dead at nineteen. Three persons are known to be missing. It is thought that these persons as well as others are still lying in the ruins of homes that were twisted and torn ihto splinters as the tornado plowed its way through the city for a distance of eighteen blocks. It was thought Sunday night that twenty-four bodies had been recovered from the but the survey made by the coroner resulted in a number of changes being made in the list of those killed, as well as in a reduction, of the number of known dead. Twenty-five,, persons are lying seriously injured in the Home and the Milled hospitals. Physicians assert that several of the injured can hot recover an<T it is believed

that the death total will be increased from this source. The list of known dead at Newcastle follows: John Nellie, 25 years old. azEverett Dunlap, 20 years old. Graz - Davis, 35 years old. Mrs. John Davis, 60 years old, of Mooreland, Indiana. Orville Davis, 6 years old. Mrs. Archie Fletcher, 22> years old. Mrs. Mary E. Williamson, 53 years old. j. Mrs. Vera R. Higgins, 24 years old. Earl E. Razor, 14 years old. Frank L. Newton, 29 years old. Bernice Day, 8 years old. June Day, 6 years old. Ethel Day. 16 years old. Ernest Waterman, 6 years old. William S. Lowery, 55 years old. Price Skelton, 24 years old. Ray Day, 22 years old Jesse McLean, 7 years old. Ernest MeLean, 11 years old.

Three Dead in Wayne County Richmond,-- March 13. Three children were killed, four persons were seriously injured and a property loss of $35,000 was inflicted in Wayne county by the tornado Sunday afternoon. The dead are Robert and Will Gray and Ernest Watterman, all under 10 years of age’. Ora Smith, an aged man who was carried 100 yards by the storm and dropped in a pond, is in a critical condition with little chance of recovery.