Milford chronicle. [volume] (Milford, Del.) 1878-1974, 1896-07-10
rHsY SAW TIE ToRNApo.
-Four St Louis BARRIERS Say It Followed 8
Pillar Of Fire ana Had Fiery Arms.

-Four St Louis BARRIERS Say It Followed
Pillar Of Fire ana Had Fiery Arms.
Up on the top floor of the Wainwright
building there is a neat little barber shoI
presided over by Louis Tisch. The barberl
in the building, Tisch, q. G. Adams, JohI
B. Huppert and A. Rnst, saw the storm
from start to finish, and they tell a mos
remarkable story about it, They say that
it was not a funnel shaped cloud such rs /.
commonly pictured as being the shape of a
tornado. Each solcmnly swears it was q
horizontal black cloud that moved through
the city with IA twisting motion, like a
screw, faster than any railroad train that
ever ran. Preceding the black cloud was
adense yellow CLOUD that looked as though
its interior was u mass of flames. From
out of this cloud shot long fiery arms in
every direction, and wherever one of these
arms struck something went to pieces
Tisch compares the cloud to big ser
pent that wriggled along up in the air and
thrust out multiforked tongue as though
in anger.
Shortly before the storm broke Huppert
went up on the roof and came back with
the information that there was a tornado
IN sight Rust followed him and came
back with confirmation of the report, and
then the two BARRIERS went out and saw
the grand mArshaling Of the storm in the
western skies. When the rain began, they
came down into the shop, and the last they
saw as they were coming through the scut-
tie was the advance guard Of the tornado
as it came in from the southwest
The barber shop is at the southeast cor
ner of the building, and all around it are
little windows, round, like the portfolios
in ship. The BARRIERS stood at the south
windows and watched the tornado from
the time it appeared away or to the south
west until a portion of it rolled up against
the building and made them wish they
were somewhere else. Tisch says they saw
houses and business blocks go down before
it, their view Of the destruction it was
wrealling being made plain by the yellow
cloud Of fire that preceded the storm proper
He is sure it crossed the river some dis
tancc below Park avenue, switched around
when it got nearly to the Illinois shore, and
started directly up the stream. In this he
is borne out by the statements Of the 9th
ers who We're Watching it,
just as they were getting ready to
move around to the east windows, In order
to observe the passing Of the storm up the
river gust of wind and rain that shook
the building came along, and they were in
the midst of the storm When next they
saw the river and the city below the storm
had passed and the rain was falling
straight down. They saw dozens of wrecks
floating down the stream and on the 9th
er side saw all the steamboats, blown away
from the harbor and piled up along the
bank Then came the second storm, fol- |
lowed by the st. Louis Wooden Gutter
company's fire, which they saw from their
airy observatory 1t was late when they |
went down, after three hours of uninter- |
Fupted excitement.
A colored boy named Nose is one of the !
valued attaches of the shop and he was
one of the spectators when the awful cloud |
was first seen. He instantly started for
the ground, and he got there in hurry |
He forgot about the elevators and made .
slide, it is averred, down ten flights of
stairs. No amount of persuasion could get
him back to the shop that night Next
when he was being twitted about
having run away from the storm he re-
markell
"Oh, there was others st. Louis Re
Dublic