The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1893-11-16
Titanic Force of Storms on the Sea
and T%ornadoes on the
Coast.
There Arc Often Scenes Of Terror
Where the Land and Ocean
I Meet
P]ortsntious Results OF Three Great Gales
From . Ripple swell to y Rolling
Mountain.
Especial Correspondence

CINCINNATI, Nov. 1.-THE crew Of a stont
ship, with plenty of sea ROOM, do not
mind a squall much more than soldiers do
q forced march, and a rocky headland can
weaken a gale as Gibraltar detes a storm
of shot and she'll; but u hurricane, hurting
the waves of the sea upon a lowland coast,
is rs terrible to the shore jewellers as to the
sailor caught in the whirl of the breakers.
Hence the portentous results of the three
gales that visited our southeastern sea-
board within the short space of a few
weeks. All three broke upon alluvial
coasts and islands barely rising above the
level of the sea, and by a strange fatality
the main force of each storm exhausted its
wrath in shore waters crowded with the
shipping of populous seaport towns.
On the coast of South Carolina the rav-
ages of the storm involved a greater loss Of
life than the sicges of Fort. Sumter and
Charleston taken together. The havoc
in the seaports of eastern Florida resembles
that of an earthquake. Miss Clara Barton,
president of the Red (<oss society, esti-
mates that 10000 persons will need relief
for the next eight months.
But the coast of the Palmetto State is at
least partially protected by sandhills, as that
OF southeastern Florida is by coral reefs,
GiIti ttN ttSSiNStAS tiiittS VI Nv W S1Afe'
was far eclipsed by the hurricane that burst
upon the delta of tine Mississippi on the
night of the lst of October. The islands of
that estuary owe their origin to the flood
deposits of the great river. A snag or the
wreck of a ship gets fastened in a shallow,
and becomes the nucleus Of masses of drift
wood. consolidated and, as it were, anchored
by the roots of trees that have contrived to
sprout in the mudbanks. Additional allu-
vium is gathered from the spoil of every
frcshet. and the new island manages to stick
together, but cannot break the force Of u
scastorm any more than the low dunes at
the mouth of the Zuyder Zee.
The coast of the mainland, SO called, is
for 1C0 miles east and west a mere chain Of
such islands, gradually turned into PENN
sulus, and no one who has visited that re-
gion in the course Of the last six weeks is
apt to forget the scene of general devasta-
ton. Up to the densely wooded shores Of
Allemand lake, some 40 miles inland from
the sea front of the delta, the storm fiend
had things nearly all his own way, and it is
doubtful if the appearance of a Chinese sea-
port after a first class typhoon could give
one a more impressive idea of the destruc-
. tive and irresistible force of a coast storm.
During the night of Sunday, Oct. l, when
the moaning of the gale suddenly rose to a
roar, the crew of u fishing smack, moored
near Grande island, looked to seward, and
. by the light of electric flashes on the north
ern horizon caught sight of a monster wave,
along ridge of sea water approaching on the
wings of the hurricane, and they had just
barely time to steer their vessel beyond
the labyrinth of the sandbanks before the
boom of the breaking storm wave was
echoed by the crash of falling houses and the
shrieks of the doomed islanders.
Grande island and Pilot Town, 80 miles
further east, were struck almost at the
same instant, as a puff of wind may be seen
raising a ripple from shore to shore of a
fish pond, only that in a sea storm the effect
of the atmospheric pressure is felt all across
a broad bay, and the swell of the ripple be-