THE AMERICAN CYCLONE.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 468, 3 May 1890, Page 4

THE AMERICAN CYCLONE.

DETAILS OF THE GREAT STORM. MANY STATES SWEPT BY THE WIND. LOSS OF LIFE VERY HEAVY. Later reports from the storm-swept States in the Mississippi valley, received by the Alameda, confirm the first accounts of the great damage done by the tornado which visited that section on the night of March 27th. The Relief Committee at Louisville, in an address to the public, states that in that city about seventy-five persons perished. The value of the property destroyed there is placed at $2,000,000.

The path of the tornado through he city of Louisville was about 300 yards wide and three miles long, sweeping across the river to Jeffersonville, which was almost demolished. Up to a late hour last night forty-five bodies had been taken from the ruins of the Falls City Hall, where most of the victims in Louisville lost their lives. DESTRUCTION AT BOWLING GREEN. The city of Bowling Green, Ky., was almost entirely destroyed. The loss at Metropolis,lll,, is estimated at $250,000 and at Gallatin, Tenn., it will be about the same.

The storm passed through many States and it is believed that the death-roll will run up into the hundreds, while the property loss will be many millions of dollars.

HARROWING INCIDENTS. One of the barrowing incidents of the disaster was the killing of the Rev. Stephen E. Barnwell, rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church, and his son Dudley. Airs Barnwell was so badly hurt that she may die. St. John’s Episcopal Churchwasshattered throughout, and nothing but a mass of brick and splintered beams is left to tell the tale. The rectory was next to this, and here the beloved rector met his awful death, side by side with his child Dudley. In the ruins of the laundry of the Louisville Hotel several girls were found dead. Most of them had evidently been instantly killed, but one who had died of her injuries had managed to free one hand and with it lift to her lips a small crucifix fhe wore.

AWFUL SCENE IN A HALL. Probably the greatest loss of life occurred at the Falls City Hall, which was in the centre of the tornado. In the lower rooms of the hall were fifty to seventy-five children, with their mothers and other relatives, taking dancing lessons. There were at least 125 persons on the lower floors and sevenby-fivg moreattending a lodge meeting on the upper floor when the terrible wind swooped dowp upon the building. The entire structure ip less than five minutes was a shapeless mags of brick and mortar, burying 200 helpless victims, of which number a few escaped uninjured.

The Catholic buildings at Seventeenthstreet and Broadway—five in number—were all blown down, and Sister Pius was killed. All the other sisters escaped without injury. The most desolated looking section of the devastated district is Chapel-street, a narrow thoroughfare one block in length, extending from Main to Market street, between Tenth and Eleventh. Not a house fronting on it but is torn to fragments, and debris lines both sides, so there is scarcely room to pass through the centre of the street.

Major Gait of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, and his family, who lived in a two-storey brick'house, were sitting in an up-stairs room when suddenly the walls fell upon them. Major Gait succeeded ip get: ting out without injury, but bis wife was buried in the ruins. She was not badly hurt, but the shock to her nervous system was great, and she is now lying dangerously ill.

Three lives were lost at the corner of Eighteenth and Maple-streets. The killed were John Werrick, aged 40, his daughter aged 4 years and James Fitzgerald. Werrick kept a grocery, and at the time of the accident there were in the store the proprietor, his wife and daughter and Fitzgerald. At the first gust of wind the walls doubled up and the roof dropped in. Werrick was crushed by the falling timbers and taken cut dead. His wife was extricated in an unconscious conditiori. * ‘ **’

Eleven mon were crowded into a little barber shop of John Bertha at 1803 Broadway when the storm burst. The roof was torn off the second storey and carried away, and the side walls yvere tumbling in, when the men broke the windows and doors and ran into the street. Not one of them was hurt, but the building was totally destroyed.

A HORRIBLE SIGHT. The scene at the ruins of Virgil Fregbt’s cigar store where four bruised and mangled bodies of Louisvill Hotel laundry girls were found, was simply horrible. The four unfortunates were found in the cellar directly at the spot under what was a secondfloor front room. They were wedged in so tightly that suffocation must have been swift, and picks had to be used to remove them.

A THRILLING EXPERIENCE was that of Mrs Roemele, who kept a dry goods store at Colgan and Seventeenth streets. At the time of the storm, her nephew, Willie Killmier, was with her/ When the walls began to shake both of them rushed to the front door just as the

whirlwind was passing. It gathered up both of them and carried them into the air a distance of forty feet. At Maplestreet they were both hurled against a fence and remained there unconscious until they were found by a neighbour a few minutes later. The lady was badly bruised and perhaps hurt internally. Kilmier’s right arm was broken, his ankle sprained, and there was a deep gash in his throat. At the corner of Sixteenth and Magazinestreets one of the most horrible incidents occurred. Three men were caught in the falling timbers of a two-storey building and burned entirely to a blackened and charred mass in fuli view of the people in the street.

At Thirteen and Walnut-streets, in Odd Fellows’ Hall, a coloured lodge was in session. About eight coloured men were badly injured. A Cincinnati despatch states that the tornado struck the town of Bowling Green, Ky., and completely wiped it out. Bowling Green had a population of 5,000. The loss of life is conjectured to be large. DESTRUCTION IN JEFFERSONVILLE.

It is believed that the loss and damage to property in Jeffersonville will aggregate fully 600,000 dollars. Among many incidents reported from there is the singular story of W. A. Dorney, whose residence is half a block from the river. When the tornado struck the river front it picked up a skiff moored there, and carrying it along, mashed it through the second-storey window of Dorney’s residence. At the Strauss House, on the corner of Spring and First Streets, a large number of people gathered for shelter. A hall of brick and tumbling walls fell around them, but, strange to say, though the building was almost totally wrecked, no one was badly hurt. At the foot of Frontstreet a shanty boat occupied by Henry Wilkins, wife and three children, was capsized and the inmates would have drowned but for a number of carworks employees, who heroically risked their own lives and saved them. THE TORNADO AT METROPOLIS. Metropolis (111.) wa3 visited by a fearful storm resulting in the wounding and death ofanumber of its citizens and such wholesale destruction of property as was never known before. Suddenly there came from the sou thwest a rolling sound, apparently born of the union of two clouds which met in midair, and ia a moment they swooped down into the Ohio river, and on lifting up from there were followed by a column of water estimated all the way from 500 to 2000 l'eet in height. This curious phenomenon swept onward, striking the river front. From there it rushed through the residence and business portion of the city, nothing in its path escaping damage, more or less serious. A number of buildings were completely demolished. Not one of the more prominent and costly buildings in the city escaped. The only person killed outright was Emily Marshall, a coloured woman, but the list of wounded is long. There were many marvellous escapes, the most notable being that of the family of YV illiam Mathias, whose residence was overturned and carried away, leaving the family on the lower floor unharmed. In the country the devastation was even more appalling. OTHER INCIDENTS. At Gallatin (Tenn.), the brick residence of John Hibbott was blown away, an eighteen-months’ baby and a twelve-year-old boy being killed and Hibbott and wife fatally injured. Willihm Patterson’s residence was demolished and five persons injured. James Patterson’s house was wrecded, and he and his wife very badly hurt. Many other residences were destroyed.

Tho cyclone did its worst work after leaving here, however. For twenty-five miles everything was damaged. All tho houses beyond Bledsoe up to Enila, Macon county, being partially wrecked or demolished. Fully one hundred people are crippled in that section, and are under the care of doctors.

The tobacco warehouses on Main-street, Louisville, are total wrecks, and the amount of tobacco lying in the thoroughfare is almost beyond comprehension. Some of the wrecked houses contained 1,500 and 2,500 hogsheads.