Birmingham state herald., 1896-05-29
THE STORM.
Vivid Description of the Movement of the
 Dealer of Death.


 Dealer of Death.
 St. Louis May 2S.-The history of the storms movement last night is quickly the city. There was no wind and the people suffered from the heat.
 About o'clock in the afternoon the entire western horizon was banked with clouds. These were piled one upon an- other. with curling edges, yellow in tinge. A light wind sprang up and
 A Sudden Darkness
 came upon the city. This darkness in creased until the storm broke. It gave the first alarm to thousands of people in the streets at pleasure parks, in light craft on the Mississippi or at work in great mercantile establishments. There seemed to be three separate cyclones. They came from the northwest, west and southwest When they reached the Mis- sissippi river they had become one.
 It was 4:45 o'clock when the storm broke. Its descent was so sudden that fleeing women and children were caught in the streets and hurled to destruction or buried under falling walls.
 Before the mass of clouds in the west hanging over the villages of Clayton, Fern Ridge, Eden and Central gave vent to their frightful contents, tunnels shot out from them. Some of these seemed to be projected into the air. Others leaped to the earth, twisting and turning Lightning played about them. and there was a marvellous electrical display.
 Then Came the 'Outburst.
 Three of the tunnels approached St Louis with a wind that was travelling at the rate of eighty miles an hour. So de- structive was the cyclone and so ire sistible and so much greater in magni- tude than any this country has ever pre- viously known of that some of the staunchest business blocks went down before it. Iron beams were torn from their fastenings and carried blocks away, as if they were feathers Roofs, braced and held to their positions by every de- vice known to the best builders of any day, were torn off as if held only by threads.
 Telegraph poles fell in long rows, not coming down one by one, but in groups of a dozen or more at a time.
 The East End of the Eads Bridge, one of the most solid and finest bridges in the world, was destroyed. The other great bridges spanning the Mississippi were all injured. Scores of persons were drowned, or, after being killed on land, were blown into the water. Steamers were blown high on the banks, others were turned around; still others, after being torn from their moorings, disap- psared and have not been heard from. AS rule, the smaller craft were sunk.
 Not while within the city limits did the tunnels rise and fall from the ground, as Is usually the case in cyclones in small places. There was no rebounding Consequently, whatever was in the path of the winds was either destroyed or badly injured, and this destruction was
 Done Within an Hour.
 As the storm cut through the railroad yards back of the union station 1t turned over any number of freight and passenger cars, and carried away the northwest corner of the Union Depot grain elevator
 This elevator Is one of the largest in the city, and as the wreckage came down 1t crashed through the roofs of half dozen deserted shanties.
 At about D. m. the wind leveled to the ground the four story stone front build- ing at 1700 South Broadway, and Louis Ofanad, president of the Otanad Furni- ture company, John Bugst and Gustav Lestner, bookkeeper, were buried in the ruins. The latter was rescued after hours | of hard work by the police and volun- teers. He was severely bruised and his right arm was broken.
 The others had not been extricated