The islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1891-1899, 1896-06-04
THE STORMS PATH
Fatalities Will Approximate
400 in the Two Cities.

400 in the Two Cities.
MILES OF WRECKED BUILDING,
Homeless-City in Darkness
The River Disasters.
st Louis, May 3O.-When darkness
temporarily interrupted the search fo1
storm victims tonight, 315 people wer,
known to be dead on both sides of thu
river, and, although the complete death
list will never be known. it is believed
it will approximate 400 in the two
cities. The number of injured is larg
er, and many of the MANNED cannot
survive. The property loss will reach
well into the millions, but insurance
people, firemen and police alike refuse
to hazard a guess at accurate figures.
The uncertainty regarding the loss Of
life and property is due mainly to the
wide extent of the havoc wrought by
the storm.
The miles of wrecked buildings as
yet unexplored, and the more numerous
collapsed factories, toward the investi.
CATION of which little progress is made,
may hide almost any number of bodies,
as the police have been unable to Sc.
cure anything like an accurate list of
the missing. In the factory districts,
many of the employees on duty at the
time the storm broke were without rel
atives in the city, and their disappear
ance would scarcely be noted, even
though they be buried in the ruins.
1t is believed by the police that, owing
to the suddenness with which the
crash came, many tramps and homeless
ones sought shelter among the build.
ings which were leveled, and nothing
will be known of their death until,
perhaps weeks hence, their bodies are
found.
The list of known dead in st. Louis
is 100, and in East ST. Louis 146.
The city is in darkness tonight, the
stringing of the electric light wires
having scarcely begun. and but few of
the trolley lines are running. All over
the stricken district the debris. choked
streets are crowded with sightseers.
and through the dim, gas-lighted aisles
of the city morgne, at Twelfth street,
a constant stream of people is urged
forward by lines of police.
Hundreds of homes are in ruins;
dozens of manufacturing plants have
been wrecked; many steamboats, are
gone to the bottom of the river, and
others are dismantled; railroads of all
kinds have suffered great loss, and
wire and pole.using companies have
weeks of toll and large expenditure
of money to face before they will be in
satisfactory shape again.
The most serious work of the storm
was along Rutger street, Lafayette
and Choteau avenue and the contig.
uous thorougfares east of Jefferson ave-
nue.. The houses are in the streets
with their 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 standing in
Lafayette Park.
The wreck of the city hospital is so
surrounded by wreckage that it is
barely possible to reach it. By far the
most remarkable freak of the storm
was at this many winged house
About 900 patients were scattered
thorugh the wards when the tornado
struck, but, although the entire upper
story was cut off clean and one wing
RACED to the ground, but one inmate
was killed. The victim was located in
one of the upper stories, and was killed
by flying bricks when the walls fell
out. The roof came straight down
upon the foundations, and, thereafter
resting on sound bed-castings, enabled
the patients to be rescued without Sc
rious injury. The entire building was
rendered useless, and the tottering
walls will be torn down and new
structure built.
Many of the handsome residences in
Fourteenth street and about Lafayette
Park are ruined, but the most damage
was done on Sixth, Seventh, Eighth
and Ninth streets, south along Choteau
avenue and in the tenement-hOuse dis
trict. Houses are to be seen in all
stages of demolition, from the loss of
roof to complete destruction. In some
of them, the front walls had fallen
out, and the tenants performed their
household duties, cared for their inju-
ries or mourned their dead in view OF
the crowds on the streets. From the
doors of many of the partially wrecked
houses futtered black badges OF mourn
ing, and there is scarcely house in
all the district that did not have some
injured relative, friend or neighbor
within it's wind battered walls.
The path of the storm is about half
a mile wide and over four miles long,
sweeping through the thickly populated
southwest portion Of Eastland and
across the river into East st. Louis.
| Colonel Wetmore, manager OF the
Liggett & Myers tobacco plant, which
was wrecked, estimates the entire prop.
erty damage at $25. 100000, which
will be, he says, almost total loss,
owing to the lack Of cyclone insurance.
Other estimates range from SIS, 000,-
900 to $50, 900, 900, but the majority
of them are close to that made by Col
onel Wetmore.
East st. Louis is in ruins. The cy-
clone which swept down on the city
last night obliterated block after block
of business houses and dwellings, and
left behind it a red trail OF death,
scores of human beings buried beneath