The Coconino weekly sun., 1896-06-04
THE ST. LOUIS HORROR.

| ST. LOUIS, May 29.-When darkness
 temporarily interrupted the search for
 storm victims last night, 3l5 people
 were known to be dead on both sides
 of the river, and although the com
 plete death list will never be known,
 it is believed that 1t will approximate
 400 in the two cities. The number of
 the injured is even larger and many
 of the maimed cannot survive. The
 property loss will reach we'll into the
 millions, but insurance people, fire
 men and police alike refuse to hazard
 even guess at accurate figures. The
 miles of wrecked buildings, as yet un- explored, and the numerous collapsed
 factories, toward the investigation of
 which little has been made, may hide almost any number of bodies, as the police have been unable to secure any
 thing like an accurate list of the miss ing.
 In the factory districts many of the employees on duty at the time the storm
 broke were without relatives in the city, and their disappearance would scarcely be noted, even though they
 be buried in the ruins. It is believed
 by the police, too, that, owing to the suddenness with which the crash came, many tramps and homeless ones sought shelter among the buildings which were leveled. and that nothing will be known of their death until per- haps weeks hence their bodies are found The list of known dead in St. Louis is 169 and in East St. Louis 146. Hundreds of homes are in ruins, doz- ems of manufacturing plants and dog ems of business houses are wrecks, many steamboats are gone to the bot tom of the river and others are dis mantled. Railroads of all kinds have suffered great loss and wire and pole- using companies have weeks of toll and large expenditures of money to face before they will be in satisfactory shape again. The most furious work of the storm was along Rutger street, Lafayette and Chouteau avenues and the contiguous thoroughfares east of Jefferson avenue. The houses are in the streets, with the roofs underneath, buried by brick and mortar. Under the brick and mortar are household goods of every description, and on top of all are uprooted trees and tangled masses of wires There is not tree nor building standing in Lafay. cite park. The wreck of the city hos. pital is so surrounded by wreckage that it Is barely possible to reach it. Many of the handsome residences on Fourteenth street and about Lafayette park are ruined. but the most damage was done on Sixth, Seventh, Eighth and Ninth and south along Chouteau avenue, in the tenement house dis trict. Many churches also suffered from the storm. The path of the storm is about a half mile wide and over four miles long, sweeping through the thickly populated southwest por- tion of Eastland and across the river into East St. Louis
 Col Wetmore. manager of the Liz. gett X Myers tobacco plant, which was wrecked, estimates the entire property damage at S25, 900, 900, which will be, he says, almost a total loss, owing to the lack of cyclone insurance. Other estimates range from Sl5, 900, 900 to S3O,- GOO, ,oOo, but the majority of them are close to that made by Col. Wetmore.
 The following official statement has been furnish ed the Associated press: "The convention auditorium was practically uninjured by the great storm, the only damage being that | some of the light roof covering on the southeast corner of the building was | blown off The damage can all be re- paired in very few days. There is not the slightest doubt but that the | building will be perfectly restored | and in first.class condition long before | the day the convention is to meet"
 ACROSS THE RIVER.
 EAST ST LOUIS, May 29.-This city is in ruins. The tornado which | swept down upon the city Wednesday night obliterated block after block of business houses and dwellings, and | left behind in its red trail of death scores of human beings buried beneath the walls of fattened buildings or crushed to death in the streets by the flying debris. The improvised morgues and hospitals are fairly choked with dead, some crushed and bat. teTeu out OI Gtl uuudu SHdpes | and through them flow Q steady stream of hysterical women and grim. faced men looking for their missing ones, IL is almost impossible to make accurate estimates of those killed, A. i the various morgues and at St Mary's hospital there are 56 Six are in the Big Four freight house ruins How many more there are scattered about the city in private houses it is impossi. ble to tell, but a conservative estimate would place the total number at at least 150. The scene is simply appalling. From the river bank to the National stock yards, a distance of over mile, scarcely building is left standing. The greatest slaughter was done on the island, SO called. Here were To- cated the Vandalia freight house and general office. Of the river boats warehouse and humble abodes of workingmen nothing is left standing. The place where formerly houses and freight depot were standing were lit- erally swept by the fury of the storm.