Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1889-10-17

The old plainsmen can always tell the signs
of an approaching storm OF that character,
but these signs are felt rather than seen. The
air has peculiar quality, a stiffness which
can be felt, an intangible something" which
tells of the whirlwind and commotion that is
to follow. Suddenly the bright sun is OBJ
scured by hazy cloud which grows until the
whole sky is covered and the sun blotted out,
and all so suddenly is it done that it is like
the transformation seen in theatre; but as
yet all is still, and the stiffness can be "felt" /"
few minutes and fog seems to be drifting
in from the north, and sharp ears can hear
the roaring which seems to be inseparable
from it; but yet all is still, so very STILL
Then, sudden as only western wind can be
and rivaling burst of thunder in quickness,
the blizzard comes-groaning, yelling, howl
ing, shrIeking, believing like ten thousand
demons,
GAS all the fiends from Heaven that fell,
Had pealed the banner cry of He'll"
with the speed of. lightning, blowing fifty,
seventy, ninety, one hundred miles an hour,
twisting and overturning everything not firm
| ly fastened to mother earth, driving all living
things before it, while the air is filed, crowd
ed, iammed full of fine particles of frozen
mist, while the thermometer sinks down,
down, lower and lower, to zero, ten, twenty,
thirty below, and all the time the storm in
creases in power and violence. The snow is
driven everywhere. Nothing can keep it out.
II drifts in unsupported cracks; it finds its
way in through the keyhole and makes a
large drift; it drives through the best roof
that can be made; it comes up through the
floor; it comes down the stove pipe; it gets in
through holes in the plastering;it it is forced
through at the sides of the panes of glass in
the window where the putty is loose; it is
everywhere present in the house; what must
it be outside? Outside there is no facing it.
The only thing one can do is to turn and go
with the storm. The wind blows all around
a person. 1t pounds him in the back; it
punches his sides; it beats him in the face
and presses him to the ground. 1t blows all
the air down his throat so fast that his lungs
are inflated like balloon and he is dying
lIOA tOO LnuCu arr IL DlOWS dll the air past
him, creating vacuum, and he is smother
ing for it. 1t blows right straight ahead too,
all the time, with constantly increasing force.
The snow all the time is filling his ears,
nose and mouth, blowing through his clothes,
however thick they are, and loading down
his boots, pockets, and every available and
unavailable place, chilling himuntil it seems
that the blood is flowing in little icy particles
through his frozen veins, and that his heart
is nothing but lump of ice. Is it any Won
der that men caught out in such storm sink
down and die within few feet of their own
door, when it is impossible to see two yards
in any direction and to be heard even one?
A genuine first class western blizzard would
overwhelm an army, even though it we're led
by the great Napoleon, and absolutely moth
ing can stand againstit. It is phenomenon
peculiar to the west-a weston product, and
what the east gets up once in while is only
feeble imitation and not worthy to be called
a blizzard. Gle.
Syracuse, Kan, Sept 9th, 1885,