The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1882-06-29
HELP WANTED!


Further Concerning the Great Tornado
In an Urgent Appeal for Help the Edit
or Of the Des MOines " Register" Gives
Some Later Details of the Terrible Ca
lamity.
Dies MONIES, Ia, June 20. I
The death-list Of the cyclone foots up forty.
one at Grinnell, seventeen at Malcolm, and
eleven at outside points. Six or seven moro
are dying at Grinnell, and there are 10 cases
of wounded, half Of them very seriously. The
entire death-roll is sixty-four, and it will prob
ably reach 100. Fifty Of the homeless victims
have lost everything they had. At Mount
Pleasant, twenty-eight miles west of Burning.
ton, the Baptist church was demolished; loss,
$25,OO0 and q number of other buildings were
more or less damaged. making a total loss Of
$4,000. In Story and Boone Counties the
damage Is very large, many farmers and resi-.
dents of small towns losing all they had. Tho
tornado originated in Boone County. 1t soon
divided, one branch going north destroying
buildings and killing stock. The south branch
of the tornado started at Garden Prairie,
Boone County, at 7:30, and was south of Ames
at 7:45, at Grinnell at S:45 Malcolm at 9:l5, and
Mount Pleasant at II. Many describe tho
storm-cloud as like u long rope swinging back.
ward and forward, and reaching from the sky
to the earth.
From the start, as seen from the north Of
Boone, there were two storm-clouds, one white,
the other black, apparently contending with
each other. The black cloud took the west
course. The white cloud was high in the air
and swung of to the east oyer Nevada, curved
back to the west and south, uniting with the
black cloud in the south part of Story
County, thence southeast, rising as it went,
until near Kellogg, IN Jasper County, when
1t struck SiQhtlV north of that with
loop of its whirl; thence to Grinnell and
Malcolm, bending south Of Brooklyn; thence
curving to the southeast and bounding over
Deep River Township, in the southeast corner
Of Poweshiek County; thence southeast
dropping on Brighton, in Washington County,
and Mt. Pleasant, in Henry County; then ris
ing and going ont of the State few miles
south Of Burlington. The distance traversed
was 1856 miles; velocity, thirty-eight miles an
hour; width Of track, from fifty rods to five
miles.
The following appeal for aid has been fur.
nished the Associated Press, with a request
Tor its publication in all the papers in the
country:
ITO the Public:
"After two days and nights spent in
traversing the track of the tornado that swept
over this State with such fearful havoc last
Saturday night, and having reports from
scores of the reporters of the Des Mones
Register and Associated Press, find the con-
dltlon OF the stricken people so piteous and
SO needful of instant and generous help that
States in their behalf: The tornado made a
tied portion of Iowa some $50 miles In
length and an average of half mile in
width, extending from point south of Ames,
In the center OF the State, and swept in the
shape of crescent to South English, in
keokuk County, in the southeastern part of
the State: We have the names now of sixty
lx,l
grievously hurt, and probably fifth of them
fatally. Over 800 families have had their
homes totally destroyed, and there are now at
least 500 homeless and in want. The loss in
property will exceed $2,OOO,OOO, and may reach
S3,OOO,OO0 In the town of Grnnell alone over
S4oO,oOO i'm property was destroyed, on none OF
of fires. 1t will take at least 100000 to put
the people there beyond need and distress. 1t
will take 100000 at once to put the wounded
people in condition to be cared for. 1t will
ers from want and to help them to put the
humblcst of roofs over their heads.
THE people of Des MOines and of Iowa are
responding generously. The citizens of this
city have subscribed 5000 this morning, and
will make it $4,000 before night, IN money,
and are also sending provisions and clothing
besides. But it will take the help of every
humane city and town in the West, and Of
every liberal city and town in the East to put
comfort and safety between these stricken
people and further suffering and fatality.
"Grinnell is town of New England people,
a thrifty, intelligent people, and with the
lowest rate of crime and iliteracy in the State,
and the highest rate of intelligence and moral
1ty. The rch towns of the East may well help
these sons and daughters OF New England in
the distress and need of the tstter calamity
VISITED upon them 50 cruelty by this MOloch Of
the air, which has killed fifty of their people,
destroyed 100 of its homes manned and mutt
lated 200 more of its people, many of whom
will soon die, and all of whom must be cared
for for months, and wiped out totally nearly
half million dollars in uninsured property:
Iowa College has had all its buildings de.
stroyed, its 400 students made homeless, and
has suffered loss of $4,000 in uninsured
property.
1.-The condition of other towns and farming
communities is fun as pitiable and helpless.
All that the people of Iowa can do will be done
to alleviate the condition and repair in part
the losses of the sufferers. But it will take
81 ,0OOO 600 to do it, even to halfway comfort and
recOmpense them, and the people of the State
who have always borne their share and done
their part in all National calamites may fifty
ask the people of other communities to help
them in this hour of great calamity to many of
the worthiest of its people, and to this end l
ask my fellows of the press through the United
States to place these facts before their read
ers, and to give their timely help to its suffi-
cient purpose of raising and providing aid at
the earliest moment possible.
1.-THE fury and power of this utter calamity
was as indescribable in their mightineSs of
strength as their havoc and power were cruel
and complete. Many people were left of their
houses not splinter as large as a finger, not a
shred of furniture as large as skein of silk,
and hundreds have no clothing left except the
night-clothes they had on: Gases of excep-
tional horror add exceptional pathos TO the
piteous whole. Women in pregnancy were
killed outright, others forced to premature de-
livery, and little children with both parents
killed and lett MANNED and wounded them
selves. Every condition exists that most
tenderly appeals to the pity of the human
heart. The wounds inflicted by the debris
balls Of fire, that seemed to traverse every
inch of space. and that exploded with fear
fully fatal effect, will many of them defy all
skill and nursing, even with the tendcrcst care.
1.-THE fury of the storm, which was clearly
of electric origin, and which, indeed, may be
described as having been electricity itself pre-
cipitated in chaos, may be understood from
the statement that in various places it took up
in it's greater sprals, or tunnels, houses loo
feet high, and took up and carried large herds
of cattle through the air for thousands of feet
and dashed them down dead in heaps. Many
thousands of cattle, horses, hogs and other ami
mails now lie in the track of the tornado already
rotting, and adding, in the hot weather, the hOr-
rOr of putrefactton to the foul and pervading
Odors that are being given off by the millions
of tons of decaying matter left in the wake
of the tornado. The horrors of the
storm, the unSpeakablc cruetics that it
inflicted, the piteous woe of its coming
in the night, when the dead were not
known, and the wounded could not be found,
and the piteOus state in which it has left hum
drcds of families, before prosperous, may not
be described in words, but once known to gem
erOuS hearts must command the instant SYM
pathy of the liberal and immediate help
" Remittances may be made to the Hon. J.
B. Grinnell, mt Grinncll, or the Mayor Of Grim
nell
days and nights spent on the scene of desOla-
ton and among the dead and wounded, and
tell the facts of the multitude of horrors
simply rs they are. feeling that they will them
selves best appeal to the country and most eff
feCtually aid the sufferers
-. $. CLARKsoN,
" Editor Des Moincs Register"