The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1888-02-23
A Terrible Cyclone.

on.Saturday last and utterly devastated the
town. Over 100 persons were killed. 1t
came on very suddenly, there being no
premonitory notice of it. until the storm
burst upon the place with devastating
fury. The scenes and sufferings are des-
crbed as heart rending. To add to the
misery occasioned by the storm, fire broke
out and consumed much of what was left
of the town.
II. S. Reardon, conductor of the Louis
vile and Nashville train which was
caught in the storm at Mt. Vernon, and
had his shoulder dislocated, reached st.
Louis on the night of the 2lst and gives
the following brief but graphic account OF
the disaster
1T was all oyer in a minute. The
thing that most impressed me was tue de-
struction of the County Court House,
fine three. story brick building. The
Court house stood in prominent place
and could easily be seen almost from the
tower to the ground. 1t looked to me as
though the huge pile of brick and mortar
had been struck by a gigantic gathering
ram, or by big club in the hands OF
power strong enough to knock it down at
single blow. 1t seemed to collapse all
at once, spread out and bury the buildings
surrounding it,
Marcus Aarons, traveller for Phila-
delphia house, who was passenger on the
train, says:
Houses went down like wheat before
the reaper. A three-story mill was blown
across the track just behind US. Our
train was lying in the way of the storm,
and it was taken at flying rate down the
track. The engineer could not control
the train, and, fortunately for US, the
brakes we're not on. Trees were uprooted
and cars lifted clean off their wheels. A
strange thing was that three minutes alter
the storm the sun was shining brightly
and serenely on the scene OF desOlatlon.'
j. w. Wallace, agent of the Southern
EXPRESS at Shelbyville, Tenn, said:
Il saw black cloud coming from the
Northwest. 1t was in the shape OF
large inverted cone, and it could be
plainly seen revolving and at the same
time bouncing up and down through tne
air. 1t grew denser, and the blackness
assumed a fierceness that was appalling.
In moment the whirling cloud arrived
at the town, and it could be seen dipping
down here and there and tearing off the
house roofs. and then rising higher into
the air again like a swaying balloon it
would float along with lightning-like
rapidity, only to swoop down again upon
the town in another spot. razing the
houses and trees. licking the sides OF
buildings and tearing great holes in them
and leaving devastation along every part
of its course. AS the cloud would dip down
and rise again. it would carry trees upward
in the air and throw them to the ground
with mighty force hundred yards away.
Parts of house roofs, trees, boards, bricks,
were carried through the air at fearful
rate and left piled IN homogeneous heaps
along the track of the cloud. The pas
sengers on our train we're in Il panic.
woman screamed from fright and rushed
into the arms of their husbands and es-
corts for protection. The cloud dipped
down on the north side of the train and
demolished house. arose and passed over
us with magical swiftness and dropped
down Oh the earth to the south of the
train. where it completely destroyed an
other building and passed on through the
town in its work of destruction