The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-05-28

the number drowned in the Mississippi
viii aggregate hundreds.
Excursion steamers lying at the levee
and those running up and down the
river were sunk almost immediately
those on board having absolutely no
opportunity to escape.
The city bears the appearance of
having been
sHELLED BY AN ENEMY.
In some places structures have been
entirely destroyed. while others. high,
jagged walls stand. constant menace
TO passers-by
There must be great number OF
people imprisoned in the DESTROYED
buildings who cannot be gotten olit for
hours' although thousands of citizens
nave offered their aid to the police de-
pal lihent to help in the work of rescue.
Every hospital in the city is filled
Mfth victims. and there is a lack of
Hurses, physicians and medicines. but
soon as the people get their wits
ABOUT them again the work of allevi-
atlhg the sufferings of the injured will
rer. No
Al the morgue, which stands at the
corner of Twelfth and Poplar streets,
bodies are being brought in every
minute
Venice and Namieki, villages just
outside of St. Louis, were totally de-
suroyed, and great loss of life is re-
ported from them. but it will be morn
ing before anything positive as to the
losses end deaths can be secured.
few minutes after o'clock the
operator of the Associated Press at St
Louis, who was in the act of taking
the usual report, sent word that it
was growing very dark and asked for
a minutes delay, that he might pro-
vide himself with light. In a second
more the wire snapped and it was
impossible to get any further informa-
ton from him or out of the town.
Inc local weather officials in this
city were unable to give any
INFORMATION REGARDING THE
STORM,
as they were informed early in the
evening by TIE Western Union that it
would moi be able to send the usual
weather bulletins from St Louis. It
was said. however at the local Of
flee that the conditions had been all
through Missouri and southern illinois,
1t is thought the storm swept over St
Louis from the northwest to the south
east, IS il is considered proba BILE the
storm which was reported in the af-
ternoon az Rush Hill. Mo-, would re-
quire several hours TO reach St. Louis,
and the storms at the two points are
reported as having been long enough
apart to enable the storm to cover the
Il = haf
Louis.
The storm which tore through the
country south Of Cenualia, H., is said
to have occurred at about 6 o'clock,
or an hour after St. Louis was devas-
tated. These three points are in a
direct line from the northwest to the
southeast, and the weather officials are
inclined TO believe that the storm was
one and the same
THE EADS BRIDGE,
which is reported as having been
badly damaged by the storm. was
built in 1879 and was considered one
of the strongest arch bridges in the
world. 1t was built without a draw
bridge and rose to an elevation in the
center and slopej down to the shore
on either side. There were upon it a
douSle railroad track. which was
used by the trains of the Wabash and
Alton railroads, a double pasSageway
for wagons and a double pathway for
pedestrians. From the reports re-
ceived It is not thought it is so seri-
oUsly damaged as TO delay the train
service of the roads which use it to any
large extent
At midnight it was reported at the
dispatcher's office of the Wabash road
at Forest. IL, that it was impossible
to reach any point further south than
Nameoki, which Is nine miles northeast
from ST. Louis The operator at that
point said that up to midnight it had
been impossible to obtain any definite
information from St. Louis, but it was
certain that
FEARFUL DAMAGE HAD BEEN
DONE.
He said the ruins at East ST Louis
were on fire and burning fiercely, but
could tell nothing more than that He
had not been able to obtain any in
formation from any of the Wabash
trains that had passed his station since
o'clock in the afternoon.
The report of the damage to the
bridge and the estimates of the num-
Der of dead and wounded, he said,
were not confirmed with any accuracy
and the report of the destruction OF
the relay depot in East st. Louis also
lacked corroboration.