GREAT STORM IN NEW YORK.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 136, 1 August 1911, Page 6

GREAT STORM IN NEW YORK.

PANIC AT A CHARITY FAIR

Now York, June 11

-A tropical storm unprecedented in fury i'oi this latlitude paralysed the transportation of New York yesterday evening and wrought enormous damage, leaving tiie city and suburbs in a sorry state to-day.

The gale was blowing at seventy miles an hour and unroofed bouses, disabled telegraphed wires, drove vessels from their moorings, and smashed acres of windows. The lightning killed three persons and destroyed many costly electric signs. Rain descended in such tin rents that the sewers were not able to carry off the water and some of the afreets were all hut hkvig’ablc.'“ ’’Through the kiosk entrances .of. tlio ventilating shafts the water' rushed' into' the subway, so that the, power had to he shut off and trains were stopped. Tho same thing occurred in connection with the tramways, the conduits caning the electric current being filled with water which short-circuited the power. Tils electric plants in several pleasure resmts were struck by lightning, it ml huge areas filled with elaborate mechanical railways and water chutes were suddenly plunged in darkness and thousands of persons had to emerge the best way they could. In the scramble for safety from lightning, women fainted and many were injured. A train carrying several thousand holiday-makers from Coney Island to New 'York was struck by lightning and many 1 ■of' the passengers received shocks. The crush in the railway stations was terrific.

The worst panic occurred at Flushing, a Long Island suburb, where ten thousand persons had assembled in tents at a “Society Fair and Amateur Circus,” arranged by leading citizens for the benefit of a hospital. Tlio first gusts of the storm levelled every tent. In One of them three thousand people were watching an amateur circus troupe. Elephants were leaving the ring and a squadron of a crack Yeomanry corps -was entering to give a riding exhibition when the tent collapsed. The elephants and horses, panic-stricken under tho heavy canvas, trumpeted and neighed in alarm. At the same moment the shrieking spectators all rose at once to escape, and the stands around the ainpitheatre collapsed.

It took three hours before the canvas was removed' -and everybody rescued, and a dozen persons had to ue sent to the hospital. Two companies of Boy Scouts drugged hundreds of people from beneath a lent. In a neighbouring tout Mr. James J. Corbett, the former prize fighter, was the chief rescuer, find in a. third a woman singer attempted to keep the audience calm by’singing “Killarney” amid the drenching rain and flapping of canvas. 1