Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 73, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 May 1904 — MANY KILLED IN TORNADOES. [ARTICLE]

MANY KILLED IN TORNADOES.

Whole Families W iped Ont in Storms in the Southwest. ; Twenty-six persons were, killed and many, injured by tornadoes that swept over tlie sections of the-Smithwest Monday. Dispatches show the following known casualties: Killed. Injured. Fairland, I. T 10 8 Pryor Creek, I. T. ...... 6 5 Chouteau, I. T 3 2 Thlilequah, I. T 2 Needmore. I. T 1 Clear Water, I. T 5 ’Sherrill, Ark . 2 1 Pastoria, Ark 2 5 Monett, Mo.. 1 Mexia, Texas 8 Totals 26 30 Many homes and business blocks were ‘wrecked and in several eases whole families were crushed to death in the ruins or maimed so that they cannot recover. Half a dozen business blocks were destroyed at persons were killed. Farther south, in the neighborhood of Pryor Creek, the storm swept < lenu everything in its path, demolishing farm houses, leveling crops and trees and killing stock. Residences were razed nnd their jjecupants either killed or seriously injiireil at Grand River and Flint Mills. The storm started near Chouteau, south of Pryor Creek, and traveled northwest, cutting a path from one-half to a mile wide and .fully twenty miles long. In Texas the worst damage was at Mount Vernon, where eleven houses were destroyed and a dozen petsonS injured. Four residences were demolished at Mexia, nnd all the members of the family of A. B. Shanks were injured, one of them probably fatally. In Arkansas the—towns of Pastoria and Sherrill were the worst sufferers, numbers of houses being blown down rft both places. In Pastoria two children were killed and a boy and a woman dangerously hurt. All points in western Missouri and eastern Kansas report heavy rains and high water, inundating thousands of acres of farm lands. At St. Louis the Mississippi river is rising rapidly. The danger line is thirty feet, and the river Monday registered over twenty-eight feet. The high water mark in the great flood year was thirtyeight feet. In East St. Louis Mayor Silas Cook secured a large force of men and the building of dikes was at once begun.