Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 June 1896 — CYCLONE KILLS FIVE HUNDRED [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CYCLONE KILLS FIVE HUNDRED

Missouri’s Largest City and Its Illinois Con- ■■ sort Meet Terrible Calamity.

ST. LOUIS ffl RUINS. Huge Buildings in the City’s Heart Destroyed. DEATH ON THE BI VER. I Excursion Steamers Are Blown Bottom Side Up. '.-.'a. Z ‘ ~ 11 Human Beings Swept to Instant Doom -—Steamcra Are Sunk.Btiildingis Blown Down, and Railroad Trains Overturned —Loss of Life Rivals That of the Johnstown Disaster -- Principal Buildings in East St. Louis Destroyed —Fire Adds Its Horrors—Millions of Dollars' Property Damage. The city of St. Louis, torn and devaststed 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 destruction 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 is estimated that •s 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-

tropolis the terrors of a cyclone have come upon its avenues and boulevards, ravaged hie 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 horrors 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. Steamers on the river were sunk with all on board. A station of the Vandalia in East St. Louis was destroyed, and It is reported thirtyfive lives were lost. The roof of the Republican convention hall at St. Louis was taken off. The two top stories of the Planters’ Hotel are gone. The Western Union , and many other buildings are wredKCl"' The -city was left 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 pupils 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 wires, wild currents of electricity, crushed buildings, all contributed to this element of destruction. The ‘ ’.arm system was paralyzed. Approaches '.ere 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 fires added at least <500,000. 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 ruins. Factory after factory went down, and piles of .bricks and timber mark the spots on which they stood. Dwellings were picked up and thrown in every direction. Busi-

ness houses were flattened. There was no chance for the escape of the occupants. Ths ruins covered bruised and mangled bodies that will not be recovered until a systematic search is made. Thousands of, families in South 8t Louis are homeless, practically, and the temporary hospitals shelter scores and hundreds. At the time the storm broke the streets were thronged with crowds of people re-

penetrated almost iriomentarily by flashes of vivid lightning,' the ominous rattle and Tumble of the thu!iiler,__thc_ torrcnto of . stinging rain and the raging and howling of the mad tornado cheated 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 tha non 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, one of the largest steamers on the river.was siink along wi th others. Death List la Appalling. Ten millions of damage to property and five hundred persons killed and a thousand injured, is what has been accomplished. East St Louis is as badly damaged as St. Louis. Half a dozen 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 at 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 heat. 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 hurled to destruction or buried under falling walls. Before the mass 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. Then 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 came. 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 the 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 merchants and architecturally famous from New York to San Francisco, were line tinder boxes when the wind was at its - height The massive stofie 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 b|pwn over and the passengers piled up ip 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 were drowned, or, after being killed on the land, blown Into the water. Steamers like the Grand Republic, the City of Monroe, packets which are famous between New Orleans and St

Louis, were carried everywhere. StiH 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 exbursion .steamers, most of which had a great many women on board. Houses weft blown in th the river, and at-one time during the worst of the jdovfa section of the river.was.scoqul muddy bottom shown. The water was carried blocks away as though it were a solid. Not while within thg city limits did the funnels rise arid fdll from the ground, as is usually the case in cycldnes 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 Ruined, East St. Louis’ tremendous shipping interests have received a' heartrending blow. The ra.ilroad tracks were literally torn up from the right of way and scattered. Huge warehouses and freight depots were piled on top of each other. Long lines of box cars loaded with valuable freight were turned upside down. The telegraph offices were, destroyed and miles ofwlretflowndnwn.- ——

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 rjiin in a large city Was never witnessed since the Chicago fire. Breaking at the hour it did, and the night following, thework of rescue and relief was very slow. The firemen ami police were immediately made aids to the surgeons and physicians of the city". Many people were buried tinder 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 tlie Disaster that Visited the Pennsylvania towns. 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 lives 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. Hundreds of people clung to their floating homes, which were swept onward upon, a volume of water unprecedented in

modern history. Many people were rescued from their perilous positions in the upper stoxias of their homes. The CamtLia iron works were destroyed and 2,000 rflen were thrown out of employment Five large bridges were swept away- Oars and lumber floated upon the

■ J ' h -••• mad torrent.- —Al 1 trains on- the PennsyL vania and Baltimore and Ohio railways were abandoned. Meh, 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 ailfl heroic action to feectre the inmates rif a valley in which death?rode through upon, a wave of mercideso water. ~ ~ ' ", ' —■ Th<-rain descemled in torrents for sev-fnty-two hours. Hundreds of dead bodies floated upon the bosom of the river for a distance of fifteen miles from the scene of the Wires were down and all telegraphic communication temporarily cut off. _ Collieries in the vicinity were forced to suspend. The dainage extended

to the properties of the Lehigh Valley and Reading railways. % .'V

THE GREAT CUPPLES BLOCK.

POSTOFFICE AMD 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, GRAND STAND AND RACE TRACK, ST. LOUIS FAIR GROUND.

ST. LOUIS CITY HOSPITAL, FILLED WITH INJURED.