TORNADO IN THE UNITED STATES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2602, 16 March 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

TORNADO IN THE UNITED STATES.

TKRRIRLE LOSS OF LIFE. NIAGARA BRIDGE DESTROYED. No wind storm ever experienced in the Western States has surpassed in fury or destructive power the cyclone which passed on Wednesday, January 9th, through parts of Now York and Pennsylvania. In New York State, Brooklyn chiefly suffered. The roofs of houses were hurled on tree tops; people were knocked senseless by bricks, which were carried iu blocks through the air ; chimneys were lifted bodily, and comers of houses were carried away as though they had hern severed by a huge cleaver. At the Navy Yard the upper storey of the brick barracks, which are two hundred feet long, was blown off. Tho copper roof went flying through the air with a report like a broadside of guns. Two of the Citizen's G.is Company's tanks were overturned, and the contents, half a million feet of gas in each, exploded, the flames igniting the neighbouring houses. There were, however, no fatalities. But what happened in New York State was trivial compared with what was felt in Pennsylvannia. At Pittsburg an unfinished building, thirty feet by eighty feet, and seven storeys liiuh, collapsed. The wind entered through the open front, thrusting one wall each way upon the adjoining houses, which were lower. Eight bodies of persons killed have been recovered, and there are certainly 20 in the ruins, iu addition to which scores of people are injured. The destruction extended through Harrisburg, Altona, and the Lebanon Valley to Reading, where the stonn inflicted, within a few minutes, the greatest catastrophe ever known there, It first wrecked the car workshops of the Reading Railway, where 30 workmen, who were employed upon nine new cars, were tossed hither and thither. A gas tank in each workshop exploded with a noise like artillery, and a quantity of gasoline set fire to the debris. The startled citizens, on arriving upon the scene, helped about 20 people out of the ruins, and heard the shrieks of others who were imprisoned and literally roasted alive. Nine residences were levelled to the ground, and Mr Grimshaw's five-storey brick building, used as a silk manufactory, was dashed to the ground. Over two hundred operatives, mostly girls, were in the building at the time, and the survivors were soon seen scrambling from the "shapeless mass of ruins. That they were all not instantly killed is due to the inextricable interweaving of the girders, beams, and looms, forming, as they fell, interstices, in which the operatives were imprisoned. By the aid of the flickering flames, the rescuers extricated the mangled forms, and up to midnight fourteen bodies had been removed, and eighty remained in inaccessible parts of the ruins. Scarcely one of the whole number escaped uninjured. The scenes among the thousands of bystanders, the majority of whom were relatives, were too sad to be depicted. Another account says A tornado of terrific velocity came upon Reading, a picturesque town situated in tho foot hills ; of the mountains in Western Pennsyvauia, almost without warning on Oth J January, with all the fury of a western | cyclone, and in a few seconds unroofed | and throw down buildings, killing and j wounding hundreds of people. It had | rained in the morning, but towards 4 o'clock in the afternoon the clouds broke j aud tho sun appeared, causing a beautiful rainbow. Then the scene changed with a suddenness that was appalling. Fleecy j clouds gavo way to ominous signs of a coming storm. Dark heavy banks of i clouds marshalled themselves in the fore- | ground, and gloom seemed to have settled j over the city. The wind whistled, howled and tore, in mad confusion. The storm 1 clouds grew heavier still, nnd louder roared the wind. In the western sky a i hurricane was seen approachiug, aud auj nnunced itself with a thundering noise. I The path it cut was narrow, but the i effect terrible. Persons residing along t.he ; track of the storm say that they saw the first signs of danger in a funnel-shaped whirlwiud, which seemed to gather np ; everything within its reach and cast, it ; right and left. In the country, houses I and barns were unroofed, farm outbuild- ; ings overturned, crops rooted up, and destruction spread in every direction. The track of the tornado was about 200 feet wide. Fortunately it. did not puss through the town of Reading, but onlv across it outskirts, composed mainly of factories and railway building-', It tore off the corner of one factory, lifted heavy railway coaches from the rails, and carried them for some distance through tho air, smashing them to splinters when they leached the ground. As it advanced it brought with it torrents of rain and a darkness as of midnight. After overturning several buildings and tearing off their roofs it reached the Reading silk mill, one of the chief industrial buildings of tho city, in which its citizens took the greatest pride, a large strongly built structure 300 feet loug, 1">0 wide, and 4 stories high. It was .surmounted by a massive tower 100 feet high, and contained from 200 to 300 operatives mostly girls. The tornado struck the building full in the centre on the broadest side. The huge mass first trembled for a second, aud then collapsed like a child's toy limi«e, carrying all the inmates with it. Words cannot depict the scone that followed. The walls gave way and tho floors fell down one on top of the other, and their heavy burden of human beings was hurled with them to the b«ttom. Tho bricks were piled up in the greatest confusion, while amid the hurricane and shrieking of the wind terrible cries for succour rent the air. Girls with blackened faces, bruised and broken limbs, their clothing tattered and torn, dragged themselves from the ruins. Probably 75 to 100 escaped, or were pulled out by their friends. These of course worked on the upper floors, and were near the top of the ruins. In some cases the bricks were piled 20 feet deep, and underneath were lying human bodies by the score. When the people began to gather to aid the victims very little could be seen in the rain and darkness. Suddenly a faint flame arose in one corner of the wrecked building, which illumined the ruins just sufficient to show a spectacle which, once seen, could never be forgotten. Above the noise of the falling rain, the clatter of the footfalls on the pavement and the horror strickcn murmurs of tho excited people who crowded round were heard the agonising shrieks of the entombed victims. It was too dark to see, but bravo men were eager and willinc to work. Bonfires were first kindled,"and then the labour of rescue began. It was dangerous to mount the base of the building and plunge into the wreck, covered as it was by a huge mass of brick and mortar. Tho slightest movement might have caused the debris to fall and add more lives to those already lost. By the glare of the bonfires, arms, legs, heads and bodies could be seen protruding from the tangled mass of beams, sashes and girders. Heartrending and pitiful cries combined in a chorus of woe and anguish, before which even strong men quailed, and some went away unable to endure it any longer, because they could give no aid. Within an hour at least 5000 people had collected around the remains of the building, ineluding the full fo ce of the fire department aud the police, and the entire night was spent in seeking to recover the victims. The parents and ' friends who assembled were mad with grief, many kneeling and praying in their agony till they were forcibly removed by tho police. Detween 250 and 300 operatives were in the building at the time of the catastrophe. It is thought that between 80 and 100 have been killed, and about 100 injured.