OMAHA TORNADO.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1710, 29 March 1913, Page 6

OMAHA TORNADO.

EX-RESIDENT DESCRIBES THE CITY. (By Teleuraph.—Spccial- Correspondent.) Christchiirch, March 28.' Mr. H.' B. Sevier, general manager of Lewis Berger and. Sons (Australia), Limited,- was at.lnveroargill when the first cables announcing tlitf tornado came. He told the correspondent of the "Pa-ess" that he resided'in Omaha until September, 1911, and lias relatives still living there, of whose fate he is anxiously awaiting news, when |telegiaphic communication is restored. Omaha has about 120,000 inhabitants, and is the centre of a large wheat and corn growing district. Ralston, which the tornado is reported to have first struck, is the fashionable suburb of, Omaha, ar.d is about ten miles froin the heart of the city. Judging from the brief cabled reports, Mr. Sevier estimates that the full strength of the cyclone would travel down Dodge Street, the wealthiest part of tlio city, and iu which his late business hous® was situated. This estimate' is confirmed by. the cabled news that twenty negroes were caught in a pool room'. His business house was adjoining, and on the Ralston side of the pool' Toom. The street between the city and Ralston, along, Dodge Street, and adjoining blocks, was'tke best rcsidentiaL quarter, many of the homes being "200,000-dolUr houses." The surrounding country was chiefly held in .2000 and 3000acre farms, principally de.votcd to growing maize and wheat, and of'a fiat nature, almost prairie plain. The damage dono by the cyclone,' if over this country, would be. enormous'. If it travelled down Dodge Street it would bo sure to strike, the Union Pacific -Railway offices,..only completed within the. last year, at a cost exceeding 2,000,000 dollars, and seventeen stories high. A cyclone in Dodgo Street alone would do more than threo milliou dollars of damage. Cyclone, insurance is a common risk taken in tlio States, and 'Mr. Sevier regretfully remarked that property. he was still holding near Ralston was not insured against this risk. The biggest department store, the slock and buildings of which alone were worth more than two'million dollars, end the biggest theatre in the town would all Auffer. Speaking of the strength of cyclones, Mr. Sevier says that he has personally, seen a railway locomotive weighing, 100 tons blown 300 yards' off thij rails, and has also known a cyclone fo dip down into a town and destroy one; building and then rise again and do no more damage in that locality.