CYCLONE DISASTER

Hokitika Guardian, 1 October 1927, Page 2

CYCLONE DISASTER

IN CITY OF ST. LOUIS.

DEATH ROLL OVER. 60. (Australii n & N.Z. Cable Association.) - NEW YORK, Sept. 29. The New York Times St. Louis correspondent states: Fifty are known to be dead and fifteen hundred are injured, forming a heavy toll of tho tornado, which, it is now estimated, has done damage in excess of one hundred million dollars within a period of five minutes.

It is believed that the death roll may reach as high as one hundred, although this is not considered likely. Hundreds of persons are being moved to hospitals to-night after being dragged from the debris of their homes. The city’s finest homes and streets are in ruins, and the fires which broke v out are not yet all even extinguished in the residential areas, where storm pursued its freak course, tearing its way into Illinois and Missouri. The wind toppled factory chimneys farmhouses and trees. Pedestrians were swept from their feet. Automobiles were tossed about. Roofs were lifted off, and telegraph and telephone wires and tram trolleys were blown into a tangle.

Hundreds of ambulances from the city hospitals and motor cars were pressed into service in bringing the injured to medical aid. It is estimated that several thousand residences were wrecked, and that many persons were killed when the walls collapsed. Nearly an inch of rain fell during the storm, adding to the distress of the injured. The storm as the most destructive one since May 27th. 1896, when 140 were killed. It came with bewildering suddenness. The air was literally black with flying debris. Several of those killed met their death in an unusual form. One man was felled by a telephone’ pole. Two workers in an iron factory had ladles of hot metal poured over them. Two women were burned when a collapsing building cut off their egress. A policeman on his beat was crushed by flying wreckage. Troops now patrol the streets and with firemen and policemen, are digging in the debris. It is pointed out that the damage and the casualties would probably have been higher if the storm had struck the business area, which was crowded with people, instead of the residential districts.

NEW YORK, Sept. 30. A later message states the known dead are now sixty. Six square miles of the city were laid waste. There are six hundred known injured, and tho total is expected to reach 1500. Property damage is estimated at seventy-five million dollars. More than five thousand buildings were demolished. HURRICANE HITS NEW YORK. NEW YORK, Sept. 29. Hundreds were injured and heavy damage was done to property, owing to a wind here, which reached a velocity of one thousand miles an hour. DEATH LIST RISING. VANCOUVER, Sept. 30. Latest St. Louis news states seven-ty-nine are dead and more than eight hundred injured by the cyclone which obliterated the finest residential district of the city.

RODIES RECOVERED. Lloceived this day at 9.30 a.m.) * NEW YORK, Sept. 39. The bodies of eighty victims of the cyclone in St. Louis are now recovered. Many others are believed to be buried under debris and it is feared the final death roll may reach 150. The number injured is estimated at between 1.000 and 1,500 and of these 300 are in a serious condition. The damage to property is tentatively placed at between eighty and one hundred million dollars. The Federal Government has despatched a thousand regular troops to the scene of the disaster. Police and National Guardsmen are also mustered with orders to “ shoot to kill ” anyone caught looting the food statons or using War Department supplies set up in the stricken districts. Preparations have been made to take care of the homeless, estimated at 25,000.