Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1885-06-14
cYCLONIC POWER,
A Passenger Train WhirIed From
the Track
And Thrown In a Ditch, Four Pas
ssngers Being Injured.
A Miracle That Saved the Lives of
Many.
Damage all Along the Line of the
Road.

SIeux CRY, a., June ia passenger
train on the Sioux Falls branch of the Chi
csgo, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad was
blown from the track west Of here last night.
Two passenger coaches, the baggage and
express car and tender are on their sides in
the ditch. The accident occurred near
McCook, small station across the line in
Dakosa, about seven miles northwest of
Sioux City. The train was going at nearly
full speed, when a cyclone struck it.
The wind seemed literally to have
lifted every car from the track, and to have
turned them about in the air and
dropped them in the ditch. The
engine was only partly derailed, but the
couplings were severed as clean and COM
pletelyas though cut by chisel. Nothing
wasseen ofthe approaching storm by any
one on the train until it actually struck the
cars. There were sixty or seventy persons
on the train, and when the shock was felt
there was q momentary tumult of wells,
drowned in the roar Of the wind but follow
ed as soon as the crash was over by the
shrieks OF women and cries for help of those
caught in the wreckage. The engine crew
and several passengers who were but slight
ly bruised, at once began chopping at the
wreck. A brakeman was dispatched to
McCook for physician, and another man
to Sioux City for aid.
The Injured.
Apsrtiai list OF the injured is as follows
Conductor Mccall, of Sioux City head
badly cut; D. T. Hedges, Sioux City, head
slightly cut; I. j. lockwood, bruises about
the head and shoulders; Express Messenger
L. M. Scott, injured internally, seriously, if
not fatally; an old man and wife, whose
names could not be learned, badly bruised,
and at first reported killed, but will probably
recover.
AwreckiDg train was at once sent with
surgeons as soon as word was received by
two men who drove in from the scene OF the
accident in buggies. 1t is stated by trav-
cling man, passenger on the train, that
the storm was one of the regulation cy-
clones, with a combined cylindrical and GER
trifugal motion. This, he says, was evident
from the position in which the wrecked
cars lay. "The wind, he says, seemed to
have turned the cars half around, while off
the ground. dropping them in direction
slmostto right angles to the track No one
could give any idea of the appearance Of
the storm, but it was evidently one OF the
funnSgahaped clouds which come only 40
con,PaAsing northvsat syoiUnO. Tho
miracle is that no one, as far as could be
discovered, was killed outright"
Other Damage.
The storm was very severe one and
telegraph wires are prostrated in many di-
rectionS. Those along the line Of the Chi
cago, Milwaukee and st. Paul Railroad are
the only ones working. Along the North
Pacific six miles of wire are lying fiat.
Reports brought in by trains on the various
roads show heavy wind southwest and west.
So far as learned, however, there was no
serious damage to crops or buildings.
There was no hail accompanying the storm.
Nearly every one of the other passengers
escaped injury beyond slight cuts. 1t is re-
markable that none was killed, as the train
was overturned before it was possible for any
one to leave the cars.
A Circus Dem olished.
DEsMoIHEs, Iowa, June IA severe
storm of wind and rain occurred last night,
doing considerable damage westward. Burr
Robbins circus tent was demolished at At.
lantic, and several persons were injured
though not seriously.