Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 December 1898 — HAVOC ON ATLANTIC COAST. [ARTICLE]

HAVOC ON ATLANTIC COAST.

Terrific Storms Sweep the East, Bringing Death'and Disaster. Reports from all parts of the Atlantic? coast show that the terrible storm of Saturday night and Sunday wrought widespread havoc. In New York City the storm was the worst sinceithe memorable blizzard of 1888, m which Roscoe Conkling lost his life, it filled the streets with huge drifts, lnaije the country roads impassable, and in fact" blocked everything. Having finished with the city, ilie mad combination of wind and snov», the storm rushed off to New England, where its force was severely felt in Boston and many other coast cities. It will be some days before all the details of suffering and distress are made known. Front all points in the States of New York and New Jersey came reports of snow blockades. The telegraph and telephone, wires were down in all directions. On Long Island trains were not running, and on many other railroads trains were abandoned or greatly delayed. The storm began shortly after noon Saturday. It started in with a mild fall of snow, this storm having its center i» Michigan. In the evening a coast storm came up from the south, and, joining that from the west, gave New York its biggest snow storm in ten years. Twelve inches of snow fell. The wind, most of the time, blew at the rate of fifty-eight miles an hour. The lowest temperature was 25 degrees above zero. Railway trains and street cars were stalled everywhere, A score of outgoing steamships and hundreds of other vessels were weather bound in the bay. In New York City eight lives were reported lost and sixteeir people injured. The New England States felt the full fury of the storm. Railway traffic was blocked everywhere. Boston reported’ that thirty vessels were wrecked in the harbor, and that twenty-five lives had been lost. While the storm was heaviest in the southeastern part of New England, the whole district was affected, and ex-j perienced a snowfall of from eight to twenty-four inches. Fortunately, the storm was heralded sufficiently in advancq by the weather bureau to detain most of the coastwise shipping in safe harbors, but the warning was entirely unheeded; and ignored by those on shore.