The herald., 1896-05-29
AT EAST ST. LOUIS
The Town In Ruins tile Morgue Full
Corpses

Inc Town IN kUlnS tuo MOTKu0 run o.
Corpses
EAST ST. LOUIS, ILL.,, May 28.-East
st. Louis is in ruins. The cyclone which
swept down on the city last night oblit
Grated block after block of business
houses and dwellings and left behind it's
red trail of death, scores of human be-
ings buried beneath the walls of flat
tened buildings or crushed to death in
the streets by the flying debris. The i'm
provised morgues and hospitals are
fairly choked with dead, some crushed
and battered out of all human shape,
and through them flow steady stream
of hysterical women and grim-fac
men, looking for their missing ones. 1t
is almost impossible to make an ac-
curate estimate of those killed. At the
various mOrgues and at st. Mary's hos
pital there are fifty-six, six are in the
Big Four freight house ruins, how many
more there are scattered about the city
in private houses it is impossible to tell;
but conservative estimate would place
the total number at least $50.
The scene is simply appalling. From
the river bank to the National stock
yards, distance of over mile scarce
ly a building is left standing. The great
est slaughter was done on the island So
called. Here were located the Vandalia
freight house and general offices, the
river boat, warehouses and humble
abodes of workingmen. Nothing is left
standing, the places where formerly
houses and freight depots stood being
literally swept by the fury of the storm.
In the Vandalia general offices alone
there were from twenty to twenty-five
killed, the bodies of some of whom are
still buried beneath the broken rafters
and bricks.
The monetary loss cannot be estimat-
ed, but 1T will run into the millions.
The river front for a thousand wards
Is one great mass of wreckage. Steam
boats, ferryboats, transfers and tugs
are piled up in an indiscriminate pile.
some partly submerged, others high and
dry on the shore. The very stone ma
sonary on the east side of the bridge
was. cut off clean with the railroad
tracks, while the approaches are twisted
and wrecked. Trains are passing over
very slowly and carefully. Every un-
dertaking establishment in the place is
an improvised morgue and the hospitals
are full of injured.
At st. Mary's there are probably sixty
patients. with some so seriously hurt
that they cannot recover. One little
sufferer lay moaning and unconscious.
She was picked up in front of house
without stitch of clothing on her little
body. She is injured internally and will
die. The mother lies badly hurt in an
other ward.
At the police station little could be
learned DuC WHdt coul0 De seen at the
hospitals and morgues. 1t will be sew
eral days before the exact situation is
known. The search for the dead is still
going on, but it is slow work. There is
yet too much confusion to proceed sys-
tematically. The only mode of travel
between st. Louis and East ST. Louis
is one ferry boat, making hourly trips,
and it is loaded down to the watkr's
edge with people coming and going.
The East ST Louis dead are.
Charles Waite. William Surber, Mrs.
Sock, J. A. Porter l.. Richardson, flag
man, Vandalia: Amelia Surber, John
Reams. Scott Hayward. Peter
Walmsley, John Anderson, Mrs.
Bruce. William A. Sullivan,