The Republican journal., 1871-03-16
The ST. Louis Tornado Appalling Scenes
on Land and Water.

The terrible tornado which visited St.
Louis on "Wednesday last is thus described
by the Republican of that city.
Yesterday morning dawned cloudy and
a little sultry, There were some indica-
tons of rain, but nothing whatever to cause
any apprchensions of an unusual outburst
Inthe afternoon, about o'clock, the gloom
in the heavens 'leepened to the south and
west and there We're few drops Of rain
now and then. A brisk breeze prevailed,
which was warm in its temperature. but
the worst prophet of evil would only have
predicted passing thunderstorm. There
was nothing of that strange hush which
generally falls over nature as a preface
to the unloosing of her giant forces, nor
that lurid light which forebodes tumult il
the sky. Between two and three o'clock
the clouds assumed an appearance alarm
ing to an experienced eye. The gray
masses of vapor became ragged and torn
along their edges, and here and there flee
ey patches were rent off and carried along
by some swift power. The rain com
menced to fall and the wind rose gradu
ally, but not to an extent to create alarm.
\ few minutes past three O'clock the
awful visitation opened its fury without
Il moments warning, blowing from the
southwest, coming up the river in 4 dag
onal line. inclining eastward in its adj
vance-a terrible whirling force, compact
ed in a path of about six or eight hundred
feet wide, and rushing onward with a
roar like an angry sea, and the velocity
OF a birds flight. At another time, per-
haps it will be possible to collect partic-
L 10 tl,,N
yesterday hardlya witness could be found
who could give coherent statement.
They all seem to think that it smote the
earth as with sudden blow, and they
knew not that it was coming, but only felt
its awful seizure. The tornado seems to
have touched our southern limits, but to
have kept east OF the city, and no very
alarming damage was done until it struck
East St Louis Here it manifested its
dreadful power within a space of 3 min
utes, in manner never before equaled in
this part of the country, and almost indie
scribable. Let the reader imagine an ire
sistible air torrent rushing against the
frail, artificial structures of man, situated
on an exposed river bank. In moment
the air is filled with splinters, dust and
fragments of all kinds. Houses, sheds
and other structures disappear as if lev
elled bv the blow of Il Titan, or fly to pie
ces and are borne along in the stream OF the
storm The East ST. Louis elevator was
the first editice struck on the Illinois shore,
a strong frame building. The roof was
torn To ribbons, and Il large portion of it
like a black meteor Shot northward, and
fell far away in the river. Then came
the destruction of other houses some were
unrooied, and some were rent to pieces,
walls and ALL and the unhappy inmates
buried in the ruins The stately steamer
Mollie Able, lying at the East st. Louis
wharf, had her texas torn off and hurled
her wheel house disposed of in the Same
way, and became Il wreck. The whole
forest OF framework over the east abut-
ment pier of the bridge was twisted up
like a bunch of reeds in the fingers of the
storm. and crashed down in a pile OF cha
otic ruin. Railway cars and engines were
dashed down on their sides or whirled off
the tracks rs If they We're paper boxes.
Whole trees were either struck to the earth,
as if the trunks had been severed by can
non shot, or lifted bodily and carried yards
away from where they a moment before
stood. Put all these distractions togeth-
er, aud a hundred others; fill the air with
a maze of whirling objects, and imagine
:. sky as black as ink, scanned every mo-
ment with tongues oflghtning and rever-
berating with thunder crashes, while there
is 4steady roarofa great rushing on earth
and some idea may be gained of the out
burst of the tornado on East St Louis
1t was an awful scene-one never to be
forgotten. The very suddenness was ter
rble. Here Il moment before business of
all kinds was in progress, and now the
whoIepopulation is shivering aghast, while
turmoil and destruction and great noises
rage all around them on all sides, min
Cling with which is the piteous cry of the
agonized sufferers, caught between tim
bers or pressed beneath weights that crush
them 10 death. 50 swift, SO sudden, SO
short was the storm, that it seemed like
the passage OF some enormous invisible
missile, dragging ruin in its train.