The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-11-11
THE WEST INDIAN HURRICANE

Wrought in the Island of St. Vim cent.
 This account of the recent hurricane
 in the West Indies forms part of let ter written by a woman at Kingston, St. Vincent, to friend in New York: "The hurricane of Sunday, September II, was one of the most terrible that this little island of St. Vincent or any other of the West Indian islands has
 ever witnessed. It only swept over
 Barbadoes and St. Vincent, passing the other islands by. The morning was
 dark, cloudy and gusty, but not enough so to alarm any one until about S;3Q Q. | m., when from our window we could see the schooner Ocean King and the soop Sylvia dragging their anchors and | going out to sea, one with few men on board, the other with no one, Ire sloop Water Witch soon followed, and ] the captain and crew were all drowned. Then the wind rose terribly. We could | see huge trees breaking in pieces, | houses going down like packs of cards, | branches, slates and beams from fall | ing houses flying about like leaves. The house shook and trembled as | though there were an earthquake, and | the noise of the wind was so terrible | that you would see house fall next | door to you and yet would not hear l sound when it fell You would see huge trees uprooted as though they were weeds. Our house was strong, | and it stood it, but almost every house was blown down. It was terrible to see | the poor people from the different vil- 1 To fo fnr cI, l the churches except the Presbyterian
 are damaged badly, but the people had | to go into them for refuge The hos pital had the roof of the middle wing l blown down, endangering the lives of | several people in that ward, who, | through the bravery of our dispenser
 and an assistant, were all rescued. There were two distinct blows. as they are called here. the first fir m about 9 a. m. to 12, and the second from 1915 D. m. to about 3. Directly the I first Hull came, my father who is in charge of tre hospital left us to go there, and we did not think he could have arrived before the second came on He sheltered himself in store hath on his way. The streets were so dangerous, with so many things flying about, that many were wounded in them; but the greater damage was done by the houses falling on the inmates. Over two hundred and forty wounded were attended to in the hospital. my father being the only doctor there, though several people assisted him, among them two medical students.
 "The other doctors had to go to the out districts where the nu mber of peo- pie with wounds and broken limbs is cry great. Some of the accidents are | friehtfuL One little boy now in the 1 hospital was almost cut in two. Some ! had 10th legs broken and half of the | face cut open. One lady was killed by a piece of galvanized iron which sev- | cred the head from the body at one l blow.
 Tt is calculated that the government will have to feed over twenty thousand
 people. All the crops are gone. All the
 mills and boiling houses, etc, for sugar
 making are flat Every bread fruit
 tree, the mainstay and principal food of
 the people, is rooted up or else So
 shaken at the roots that it is dying.
 How they will all live God only knows;
 and the little children-oh, it is so sad to see them, poor little ones, crying for
 more food and there is no more to give them than just their daily portion. I
 myself helped to feed those who were to get outdoor relief. We fed two hun dred and thirty-eight apart from those at the church, grammar school, kirk
 and courthouse. It is so sad to hear the poor people at the kirk Qt is right
 opposite to us) singing hymns in the
 early dawn and at night.
 "The hurricane itself was the most terrifying thing I have ever gone through We all stayed in a strong
 little room down stairs. but every min
 ute I would run up stairs to the win
 dows, though that was most dangerous. At times the rain seemed to come in circle, from all four quarters at once, so
 that you could see nothing. Then it would fall straight for minute, and
 you would catch a dark, gloomy glimpse of flying beams and falling houses, half-naked people and uprooted
 trees. Then suddenly sort of wave of light would come like the glare from fire, and wou would move from
 the window, as though it could about
 scorch you, it was so vivid. Then the
 dull dark look would settle down again. The sea, too, was mountains high. Two
 big ships are high and dry on the beach ! in Kingston and two big American ves-
 sels bringing flour to Barbadoes are | ashore at Georgetown.
 | But the experience of those whose houses were ruined, and who were l glad to crawl through the ruins into
 cellar to save their lives, was terrible