The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1896-05-29

1 was RACED to the ground. The three
| upper stories of elevator B were blown
off and scattered for blocks Directly
across the tracks from the Belt Line
warehouse were the Vandalia general
Offices and freight houses. OF the gen.
eral offices scarcely one brick is left on
| top of another, while of the freight
| houses nothing remains but pile OF
| kindling wood Not more than two or
/ three of the employees escaped, the re-
mainder being crushed TO death.
The path Of the storm thence to the
relay station is marked by an unbroken
line of overturned freight cars, splin-
tered telegraph poles and roofIess hous-
es. The car tracks are utterly i'm
passible and ii viii be days before any
thing approaching order can be effect
| ed, while trains Of freight cars were
! lifted from the tracks and twisted in
every direction, sometimes the trucks
had remained on the tracks, the bodies
Of the cars being lifted bodily off and
hurled Unfortunately for rods. To
the right of the bridge, where the troll
ley cars met the local street cars. for
merry stood a long row Of frame houses
Of these scarcely the wrecka &c remains.
Right here several Of the vagaries
of the storm were made evident. In
one OF the houses lived John Mckenzie
an employee Of the st. Louis and East
St Louis Street railway, his wife and
four children. When the cyclone struck
their house the mother was preparing
supper and with her in the room were
all her children. The entire house was
raised from its floor and hurled twenty
feet to one side, leaving the frightened
mother and her little ones standing I'M
injured, with the exception Of a few mi
nor bruises, but the children had their
clothing torn from them. Across the
road Mrs. Patrick Dean and her two
children, aged 2 and 4 years respective
", were all killed when their house fell
in on them.
o. G. Van Houten, an employe of the
St Louis and East st. Louis Electric
railway, was an eye witness TO the
destruction Of the Vandalia general Of
fees.
Several OF u.s. said Mr. Van Houten
'twere standing outside the car sheds
watching the approach of the storm.
1t seemed to me that there were two
distinct cyclones. The telephone poles
out in front of the barns went down
first and then we ran for our lives.
How l got there, don't know, but fin
ally / managed to crawl under a truss
Of the big bridge and hung on for my
life. Then l saw the barns where we
had lately stood cave in and all at once
the Vandalia offices went. The walls
seemed to be fiattened out as If some
big weight had fallen on the top Of the
building. One of the freight cars in
which some of the boys crawled for
safety was blown up the track with the
storm. 1t crashed into some cars about
a hundred feet up the track and here a
reverse current of wind seemed TO catch
it, for it was carried back west to a
point beyond where it first stood, and
overturned.
''See that trolley carr" said Mr.. Van
Houten, pointing TO a car lying in the
gutter a short distance up the track
THAT car was lifted bodily off the track
and thrown into the gutter, where you
see it. The conductor, who was stand
ing on the rear platform, was picked
up and thrown fully fifty feet but was
not seriously injured. The car barns
were completely wrecked. Sacks of
salt weighing at least 200 pounds each
We're carried twenty feet"
Up town in the business portion of
the city the scene is one of desolation.
Missouri avenue for two or three blocks
on either side of where once stood the
relay station, is filled with debris. The
storm seemed to have jumped a little
west of that vicinity and struck the
ground again at the depot. Trudell
and Anderson's Office, John Drury's big
ice house and Office, Charles HazePs
-four mill, Nfemas and Reyman's Of
flee. the court house police station and
Il d.
stroyed. urther east on Collinsville
avenue, Strickler's grocery store and
Kent's butcher shop were f1attened out,
An undertaking shop right across the
street was not touched. In fact there
is hardly a building remaining in the
vicinity of the relay depot, with the
exception of the switch tower, about a
feet west. That, by some
freak of the storm, was left al
most intact, though directly in the path
of the storm. Almost at its base were
a dozen of more heavily loaded freight
cars overturned and splintered. What
little is left of the Hazel flour mill was
& destroyed by fire after the cyclone got
with it.
From Missouri avenue east to the
stock yards the storm seemed to shift
along the ground, dropping here and
there and destroying whatever it came
in contact with. AT the stock yards
again was the destruction heavy.
The National hotel was completely
wrecked, the whole front being blown in
as were half of the side walls. The
new sale sheds were also totally wreck
ed and a trolley car passing at that
time was picked up and thrown 10 one
side Of the road, the motorman and
conductor both being badly injured.