Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 October 1905 — TORNADO HITS A TOWN. [ARTICLE]

TORNADO HITS A TOWN.

Kill* Four Persons, Injures Thlrtjr five and Wrecks Sorento, 111. A tornado struck the village of Sorento, 111., thirty-two miles northeast of St. Louis, Tuesday night, killing four persons, injuring thirty-five others, of whom three will probably die, and doing a great amount of damage to property. . Forty houses were blown to atoms or carried from their foundations. A complete swath was cut through the town. Everything in the track of the tornado was reduced to debris or blown away. The four persons killed were in their homes in different parts of Sorento. All were badly crushed. The storm approached from the southwest and swept through the main residence portion of the town. The work of the wind was quickly done and then followed a heavy downpour of rain, accompanied by vivid lightning and deep thunder. Those who escaped injury were for the time panicstricken, but finally rallied and set to work to rescue the injured. So violent was the tornado that Some residences were swept away completely. Houses that remained standing were converted into temporary hospitals and refuges and the people by lantern-light, in pouring rain, searched through debris and dragged out the injured, who were immediately taken in charge by all the doctors in the vicinity. The population of Soren* to numbers 1,100 persons. The storm that wrecked Sorento deluged Alton, 111., a few miles south of Sorento, in the nature of a cloudburst. St. Louis also suffered the fury of a terrific thunderstorm. Alton’s streets were turned into temporary rivers, Fourteen miles distant the village of Grafton was deluged and the main street was three feet under water. Ten miles north of Alton a Chicago, Peoria and St. Louis freight train struck a washout in the storm and plunged down an embankment into Branch Creek, containing six feet of water. Two cars contained cattle and horses and only a few of the animals escaped death. Several tramps seen to swing on the train previously are believed to have perished. At St. Louis the lowlands of the River Des Peres were flooded.