The Richmond palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1855-1875, 1871-07-15
A FURIOUS STORM.
TERRIFIC WIND AND RAIN.
CHURCHES UNROOFED
AND DEMOLISHED.
Five Persons Killed and
Many Wounded.

Something like tornado visited
Dayton last Sunday, creating great
havoc in property, and destroying
precious human lives. The storm
was furious, and lasted about half
an hour.
At about 2 o'clock there were
angry growlings and menacing
streaks of lightning above the hori.
zon. The breeze blew freshly, and
vas greatly enjoyed by half>suffo-
Gated people. There were a few
drops of rain,: q sharp fash of
lightning, 6 humble of buttered
thunder, sudden rush of wind,
which bent and twisted the limbs
of trees, and the storm came furi-
ously. Leaves and branches of
trees futtered in the air like feath-
ers then great boughs were twist.
ed off, and vent whizzing through
space; shade trees went down in
the cutters, awnings were torn into
ribbons, signs we're flung about
like fails, and fell in splinters up
on the walks; tin roofs rumbled
like dramatic thunder, were rolled
up like vellum and flung into the
streets; great steeples, caught by
the wind, swayed to and fro like
the tops Of tall pines, and TO those
who were watching them, seemed
about to topple and tumble head
long into the thoroughfares. The
thunder was terrific, the lightning
vivid, the wind most furious, and
the rain poured down a. if the
food, gates Of heaven had opened
fairly for deluge. The lightning,
thunder, the streaming rain, the
air filled with leaves and branches
of trees, shingles, slate and tir
roofing flying. were terrific, if MOI
terrifying.
Not a street in the city escaped
the blast. Where no trees were
torn up or flung down, limbs were
torn off or houses unroofed. The
fury of the wind wes spent in lif
teen or twenty minutes, durine
which time the lightning was sharI
the thunder grand. and the rair
drenching, the cutters Overlooking
and running upon the sidewalks il
many places.
DESTRUCTION OF THE wAsHINGTo,
STREET BRIDGE.
The wind struck the north-eas
section of the bridge on the north
west corner. Although il went BY
fragments, it went rapidly. On
man and several boys were in tn
northeast end, and number NOR
in the other end, all of whom RAJ
out and escaped.
The blast struck the north-eas
end and lifted it. The person
who had taken refuge in it to escap
the rain heard the cracking. an
ran !; the man, whose name we d
not remember, escaped just as tn
the bridge fell. A lad of abou
fifteen, the son Of widow Fishbacl
who resides near the corner {
Main and Warren streets, followe
, quickly, but was struck by fal
. ing timber and badly hurt. A
last accounts he had been vomitin
blood, but was not considered Fl
tally wounded. Two others, &c
Speyer, aged fifteen, and Edwal
0 Mehan, about the same age, wei
>, caught in the falling timber
crushed in them and killed. Thu
: were taken out by willing wor
= men not long after the bridge fe
THE GREAT CALAMITY-DEMoLI
II OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH.
nj The Washington-street Bird!
~ calamity had hardly been report
:, when the destruction of the &c
$ man (St. Johns Lutheran Chure
le on East Third Street, was a
re- nounced. The storm had stru
"a, the church when the Sund
School scholars and the tcache
> were assembling. Between thu
y and four hundred children o
b teachers had gathered when
) storm burst in oil its fury.