Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1893-10-13
1000 PEOPLE PERISH.
TERRIBLE SOUTHERN CYCLONE
AND A TIDAL WAVE
Sweep Hundreds of Residents OF Louisi-
ana's Gulf Counties to Their Deaths
Awful Devastation.

Over 1000 killed and nearly IS, OO0,-
900 of property annihilated is the re-
cord of the great gulf storm in Louis
lana. There has never been anything
approXimating it since the country was
settled. More than half the popula-
ton in the region over which the hur-
ricane swept is dead. Everything is
wrecked while the survivors are left in
the most destitute condition, without
food or even clothing, for most of them
were sleeping in their beds when their
homes were crushed by the wind or
waves.
Grand Island lies directly south of
New Orleans. 1t is about sixty miles
as the crow flies from the city, and is
in the Gulf of Mexico. at the entrance
of the Bay of Barataria. Chenier
Caminada lies across the bay from
Grand Island and is stuck out in the
gulf, and when the storm came up the
mighty waves of the ocean washed
over the face of the stricken land and
swept everything before them. The
Chenicr settlement was even more
thickly populated than was Grand
Island. 1t was the home of fishermen
and storekeepers, and it comprised a
VI 4, tOO SOulS. MdIlltW IlTLtLeZ
and Dominick Mirgovich, two sailors,
were rescued by an oyster lugger, and
the story they tell is almost incredible.
They were living on the island at the
west end. Far out at sea, as the flashes
of lightning would wildly illuminate
the darkness of the night Of storm,
could be seen a mammoth wave travel
ing with wonderful rapidity toward
h. q ClAga,. nd al
and brought with it a noise of
thunder. On, on came the terrible
thing, growing larger each moment.
The island was in the stiffness of SUM
Der. These men being too frightened
to go to their homes remained in their
boat during that terrible night. Hor-
rified, they watched the tidal wave APP
proach the island, until, like flash of
lightning, it struck. Then all was
darkness and Grand island, as far as
the eye could reach, was covered with
water. The next flash of lightning
found the two fishermen far off to the
north of the island and, looking about
in the direction OF the island, they
could see nothing but sheet of water,
the island having totally disappeared.
Matthew Schurtz was one of the sur
lty, who was rescued and he told n
narrowing tale of his experiences and
of the loss of life at Chenier. Mr..
Schurtz went to the island about four
weeks ago and was boarding in house
with 20 others ON the night of the
storm. AS the wind increased in
severity the houses began to go to
pieces. The wind picked the roofs off
az thnnnh fhatr had haau chaua1 from,
the rafters with great carving knife.
Then the buildings began to rock vio-
lently and one by one they were torn
TO pieces, crashing down upon and
killing their occupants and then rap
idly drifting away with the terrible
current that was sweeping across the
land.
Suddenly there was a fearful crash
of timbers and the roof caved in bury
ing nearly every one of the party, only
Mr.. Schurtz and Negro escaping. Mr..
Schurtz chung 10 floating debris until
he saw light twinkling In house
not far away. He swan to the house
and was admitted. There were 25
people in this hodse. Mr.. Scburtz had
hardly entered, however, when the
structure went to pieces and only Mr..
Schurtz, lady and child escaped.
Mr.. Schurtz, succeeded in getting the
lady and baby to a tree and there the
party stayed till 4 o'clock in the morn
ing when the wind began TO abate.
The Negro managed to reach the pole
to which the fishing smacks are usually
tied and chung TO that during the
whole of the awful night finally being
rescued. At Chenier Island he counted
but five houses standing out of total
of about 800 while the land was COW
cred with corpses.
Mr.. Schurtz assisted in that grew
some task of burying the dead in
trenches, and during the hour he par
ticipated in the interment of not less
than fifty persons, men, women and
children, some of them having not a
mark upon their persons to show what
had caused their death. Others on the
contrary were badly lacerated. Into
one grave Mr.. Schurtz assisted in
placing six people. There was little
time for the ceremonies usual on the
burial of human being. There was
no time to build collins. If there had
been time there We're no tools, no
boards that could be nailed together,
no receptacles for the bodies lying any
where. So the living merely hunted
up spades and dug trenches in which to
deposit the remains.
On Simon Isle, in Grand Bay, there
were Is inhabitants who were waiting
for the return of the oyster fleet. Six
teen of them were drowned. Near by
is another small island called Razor Is
land. Here a camp of five men were
all drowned. On Bird Island, which is
more exposed to the heavy surf, lived
about $50 people. They were all
drowned. On Grand Bank there were
eight persons killed. At the time the
storm visited Chemie Canuda 1870 fish
ing vessels were in the gulf fishing.
Not a word has been heard from them
or their occupants. Along the Mis-
sissippi the loss of life was to some ex-
tent due to falling buildings. In the
bay it was caused wholly by drowning.