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

/ CHICAGO, May 27.-One Of the great
est disasters of recent years over
whelmed the city OF St. Louis tonight
in the shape of a cyclone, which began
shortly after o'clock, and for thirty
minutes 1ore its awful way through
the city with velocity of over eighty
miles an hour.
( Although reports from there are VERY
meagre. owing to the almost total de-
i struction of the telegraph wires. it
seems certain the number of dead. and
wounded will amount to fully 1000 and
the damage done to millions Of dollars.
The city hospital. which fortunately
survived the storm. is filed to tver-
| flowing with
MANGLED MEN AND cHILDIs ZEN.
and the morgue. within two hours af-
ter the end Of the storm, was so full of
corpses that it was necessary to pro-
vide other quarters for the reception Of
the dead. In addition to those .who
were killed in their houses and STREETS.
hundreds are beneath the wateri of
the Mississippi river.
OF all the steamers on the 1evee when
the storm broke, but one is now afioat.
All the others have gone down, in
many instances every soul on beard
being lost and in others not over. two
or three being able to reach a PLACE Of
safety.
Among the boats destroyed is ths ex-
cursion steamer Great Republic. one of
the largest steamers on the lower Etver.
Not a man escaped from her, and, it Is
said she was crowded with excursions
lists when the storm can e.
THE CENTER OF THE CITY is A
WRECK
Many buildings have been demolished
and others partially wrecked. The
streets are utterly impossible to street
cars and in many places progress on
! foot is a matter of great difficulty, To
add to the horrors of the night: the
electric plants were rendered incapa-
BILE of service and the gas lamps are
also shut off, leaving the city in total
darkness. Fire also broke cut in. sew
eral portions of the city, and the fire
: department was unable to make an eff
feotive fight because of the chOked-up
condition of the streets and the large
number of firemen who were engaged
in the work of rescuing the dead and
wounded.
/ The only authentic information from
the stricken city tonight was sent out
by the agent of the Associated Press.
who managed to reach an outlying tel
egraph office and sent a brief dispatch
as follows:
Tornado blowing at the rate of over
eighty miles an hour struck ST. Louis
| tonight and ragged for half an hour
with great fury, and as a result
| HUNDREDS OF LIVES ARE LOST
on both sides of the river. Many build
| ings are blown down and many river
steamers sunk with all on board 1t is
/ impossible at the present time to esti-
| mate the number of lives lost, as the
| hospitals are filed with injured and
! the mOrgue is filed with the slain,
/ while great numbers of the dead and
| manned are lying among the ruins in
/ all directions. A portion of the east
/ end of the Eads bridge is destroyed.
| the grand stand at the fair grounds is
! down, the woman's portion of the Jail
/ is gone and the immense Cupples block
/ is partially destroyed, the Waters
( Pierce Oil works are burning and other
/ buildings in various sections of the city
are on fire.
/ The Western Union Telegraph. COM
| pa0v announced that because of its in
/ ability to keep up it's wires it would be
impossible 10 send out any more mes
sages tonight from ST. Louis or its vi
cinity. The reports regarding
THE DURATION OF THE STORM
! are conflicting. About O'Clock the op-
orator on the Wabash road at small
station not far from East st. Louis
managed to get the operator at De-
catur, ILL.,, long enough to send him
word that the round house of the Wa
bash road was blown down and that
the freight house of the Vandaita was
wrecked and that thirty-five men were
killed in the ruins After he had told
this much the wire failed him. Shortly
after o'clock the Wabash operator at