Mexico weekly ledger., 1896-06-18
THE WRECK AT ST. LOUIS.
What a Cyclones Attack on q Great
Community Means.

In the midst of the cyclone season
several years ago l heard some one
express wonder as to what would re-
suit if a tornado of the first class
should chance to strike the heart OF a
great city. The West is dotted with
large towns, and the number of them
is growing rapidly with each year, yet
the first of the great communities to
suffer notably is st. Louis. In passing
through the desolated district, the
of surprise that instead of three or
four or five hundred deaths the num-
Der of fatalities did not run into the
thousands. 1t is difficult to understand
how there could be frequent escapes in
localities where there is not a house
left standing, and in which there is
evidence that the air was, for the mo-
ment of the tornado, literally fl ed
with debris, the least important of
which were flying bricks. For a dis
lance of at least five miles through the
heart of the city, beginning at the
Mississippi River and ending just be-
yond the fashionable region known rs
Compton Hill, there is not a square in
which a house is not damaged. This
remarkable path is from FIVE blocks to
three-quarters of a mile in width. Its
streets and open places we're for at
least five days after the storm almost
impossible for vehicles, in spite of the
fact that more than one thousand men
with teams were busy all of that time
clearing away the fallen roofs, walls
and fences Three days elapsed be-
fore the street railway companies
having tracks through the stricken
district were enabled to get their cars
through the rubbish.
1t is sometimes charged that news
paper accounts of disaster are over
drawn. In the case of the st. Louis
cyclone no amount of skill In word
picture, and no amount of artistic ap-
probation in the preparation of pic
lures for the daily press, could convey
an adequate notion of what really
happened in the twelve or fifteen min
utes in which the tornado ragged. Scores
of persons who were within the track
of the storm, and who live to-day to
tell of it, cannot describe what they
saw and felt while the tornado lasted.
They recall their apprehension as the
wind gathered force and the darkness
came, and they remember with feel
ings of horror their first sight of the
scene of desolation that met their
gaze when the light broke out of the
west, while the wind still blew a gale
of more than fifty miles an hour, but I
have still to meet a man who for the
six or eight minutes of actual dark
ness and destruction is able to describe
his sensations or his surroundings.
/ stood with a crowd of twenty or
thirty newspaper men on the main
floor of the St. Louis Republic build
ing, three blocks from the river, when
the storm struck that quarter OF the
town. The electric lights were burn
ing, but out on the street there was no
CLEAN of light except the lightning's
flash. Some one shouted that the
doors should be kept shut, and half a
dozen men, with a ladder for a brace,
attempted to keep them closed. The
volunteers were back with the crowd
in thirty seconds, with bruised hands,
glad that it was no worse, and the
doors remained open. This happened
between $40 and 5:25 O'Clock. At
5:45 the wind had fallen, and in the
drenching rain there was a rush for
street cars and carriages. hi the cars
had stopped. Wires were stretched
across the streets, with tin roofs hang
ing to them. Every carriage that had
withstood the storm was gone with its
load of occupants, who we're not u
that they would find homes when they
got to their locations. The first re-
ports Indicated that the race q
had been swept away with its grand
stand of people. There were wild
rumors that the Union Station had
gone. The telephone system was, of
course, disabled; but whatever was
left of the fire department hurried out,
picking it's way across the Uttered
| streets to the assistance of the VIC
| Tins.
Immediately north and south of the
web of railroad tracks running east
and west through the lower part of the
city weeping, hysterical women and
| children crept about the ruins. Hus-
bands and fathers that were not killed
or injured in the wreck further up
town came struggling in. Here, with
the wreckage of their ruined homes
all about them, families wept and
shouted for Joy over their salvation,
and there was actual good humor in
the face of the most terrible wreck
that a modern city has ever seen. With
such conditions few persons noticed
the approach of another storm from
the west until the edge Of the cloud
was overhead and the forked light
ming began to play against a green
background. The cloud was darker
and of greater volume than its prede-
cessor, but it seemed to be sweeping
along together, a significant fact that
was not noted by stricken people. In
their ~hysterical condition they thought
that 1t was another visitation. The
thunder and lightning were intense
and terrific, but, until about $3.50, no
more rain fell. / saw women praying
in their ruined homes. Fathers with |
their children we're running, they
knew not whittier. The situation was !,
indeed appalling. All around lay evil
dences of the fearful power that had
come but an hour before, and bearing
down upon the stricken region was a
greater and darker cloud than the
first. People yer fairly flying over
the viaducts without any notion of
what they were doing or where they
were going. This was not far from
Twelfth street, almost the heart of the
downtown devastation. Many fiat
cars, loaded with iron water piping,
were standing on the tracks, and I'M
der these the cooler ones took refuge.
Water stood over the ground to a
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