The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-10-13
THE HARRINGTON PUBLISHING co.
ABOUT { TROPICAL GALE.
How Connecticut People Were in it at Rock
 Ledge. Florida.

| Ledge. Florida.
 The following letter was written dur Ing the Florida hurricane by Mss Powe
 n resident of Rock Ledge. whose father
 owns one of the largest and most profit
 able groves on the Indian river, Mir
 H. F. Shares. of this city. Is largely in'
 terested In Rock Ledge. Mir. A. N Clark
 of Plainvllle, has an extensive grove al
 Rock Ledge.
 Rock Ledge. Sept. 26. 1891. | While I am writing this you may be | gale has passed over Florida so l am
 determined to take time by the fore.
 lock" and spare your anxiety about your Florida belongings.
 | The center of the storm Is supposed
 to have passed west of us. We are all
 thankful 1t was no worse here. Two | or three days of east wind led up 10 it
 Monday. Observer Lamonette sent news | down the river of the approach of a
 hurricane, in time for people to make
 the needful preparations, and Monday night 1t began to blow In earnest. Qmagine sitting in state, and waiting
 the arrival of hurricane, an uninvited | guest, but a very persistent one) Never say that you know what wind | and rain are until you have passed | through Florida gale. How the wind did rave! and such floods of rain came with it! And every little while above the roaring and the missing. could be | heard the dull thud" of some missile | hurled from the trees as 1t struck the | house.
 It blew steadily from the east, and | 1t seemed to me that the fury of the wind reached its height about noon on Tuesday; towards night 1t was decid- | edly more quiet. Late in the evening
 the wind changed to the southeast and blew with increased force for a few | hours-the worst of the storm the men say who were out trying to protect
 property. By daylight it had gone
 around to the southwest, and has blown
 in snappy puffs from that direction all
 day, with clearing skies.
 | No serious damage was done to hous- I | of course, the harm to the latter can
 not be estimated. Many oranges are
 on the ground, but not discoura ging
 quantity.
 A considerable number of forest trees
 are down, chiefly small ones. We have
 lost seven or eight, one of them large
 oak in the "swale."
 Wharves, bulkheads, and boat houses suffered more or less. Several bulk
 heads are utterly wrecked the doors
 were torn off boat houss; breakwaters
 and platforms on the river were torn 1 to pieces boats were shattered to pieces
 Every wharf between Magruders ant
 Rock Ledge center has suffered. and the
 heaps of wreckage thrown up on shore all along indicate destruction elsewhere | Considerable water came into our house and the workmen's cottage, re- | ducing things to a moist. unpleasant condition generally. When I went to my room last night, I found the floor covered with water, which was drip ping down into the room below. It was blown in through the smallest crack in the window which was not damned down quite as tight as it might have been. The water just boiled up be- tween that and one sill
 Cousin Edith, from Ansonia, who is spending the year with me, frankly ex- pressed her disgust with country | where one "had to go to bed with rub bers on."
 (Evidently Edith likes New England bIizzards better than Florida floods, and it is rather unfair that she should have to take both)
 None of your trees, nor large branch es on the front were broken. Of course everything is covered with trash" IL was with difficulty that we managed to make an entrance into your cottage. MT. Crosby (Mr. Powe's head man) has had his hands full. His nice fall garden a foot under water, banana plants blown down and afoat, two- thirds of the nursery drowned out, etc. But few oranges from the front trees were blown off, and back from the grove the damage is slight is any, so far as we can judge now Yours LOUISE M. POWE;. (Bad news travels quickly. Good news, even coming late is most well come. The groves on the Indian river are still standing, end this winters crop of oranges may reach the market in spite of drought and food and hur- ricane)