The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-10-15
CAPERs OF A GEORGIA STORM.
A Sort of Kindly Carefulness Charac-
terized All Its Franks.
From the baltimore sun.

FROM the baltimore sun.
Col. Richard Malcolm Johnston, the
writer Of southern plantation sketches.
tells some wonderful stories about Geor
gia weather He admits that he would
not believe them himself were it not for
his unbounded faith in everything Geor-
gian in general, and his personal knowl-
edge and unlimited confidence in the We
raClty of the men who told him the stO-
RIGS in particular.
II heard them, - he said, ''while on a
visit to my old home in Hancock county,
Georgia, some years ago, and | know that
they are true, We had a biz storm down
there about ten years ago; the folks
called 1t hurricane, the weather men
said it was a tornado But, hurricane or
tornado, IL cut some queer old Capers.
Col. Humber, over in Putnam county, saw
the storm coming up and knew it was go
ing to be n big one. There were num-
Der Of ladies at his house and, of course,
his first thought was for
them, so he got them all safely in their
rooms and went down into the large hall
which ran through his house and shut
the door. Now, Col. Humber is big
man-weighing about 200 pounds. When
he got down stairs he found the storm
was blowing through his hallway, and be-
fore he knew what had happened it had
picked him up, carried him out on his
lawn, and laid him dOwn-nOt roughly,
but gently. AT the same time it took a
heavy stone and brick chimney on the
house and laid it on top of him to keep
him in place. 1t didn't throw the chin
ney on him, but laid il down with so little
force that only his leg was broken. In a
moment or two another gust came along,
picked up the chimney and carried it OF,
and Col. Humber crawled back into the
house.
That same storm went little further
on till it came to barn in which were
Two horses, two mules, and two cows.
These were in separate compartments.
With whirl the roof of the barn was
taken OF as clean as a whistle and car
ried away, and while the stock was Won
dering what had happened, a section of
the storm went in the top OF that barn,
lifted those horses and mules and COWS
high up in the air and set them down
again without hurting one of them. But
the queer part of the proceeding was that
when it had those animals in the air the
tornado changed their position so that
when it set them on their feet, the mules
we're where the cows had been, the cows
were in the horses apartments, and the
horses were occupying the mules sails.
But that storm hadn't finished cutting
up its capers. 1t struck a house in the
SAINT county anu Lldu6 us way INTO lduN
chamber. A bureau was Standing against
the wall, having on it lot of such traps
and trinkets as ladies usually have-cos-
metics, bottles, and so on. A bandbox
with few faces inside was standing by
its side The wind took that bureau,
moved it to another part of the room, but
didn't disturb The bandbox 1t went into
another lady's room, picked up trunk
filed with clothing, carried it out of
window and waited it over into Hancock
county-my own county-and deposited it
in field forty miles away from the house
from which it had been taken. 1t was
found there unbroken the next day and
| returned to theowner, whose initials were
stenciled on its end. l am glad, however"
remarked the genial colonel, as he wiped
| his forehead, that the storm didn't carry
that trunk more than forty miles. l
| couldn't have believed another mile
Georgia is a great state,n he contin-
ued, "but even such storms as that 90
not occur often. To prove that such
! queer things do happen, there is a sec
ton of telegraph pole in the museum of
| the state university. This pole has a
| light cypress shingle sticking through it,
| about half of it pro ecting from each
side. That shingle was picked up in a
storm and blown clear through the tele-
graph pole and left sticking there"