Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1898-01-19
WINDS AWFUL WORK
NEARLY FIFTY LIVES BLOWN
OUT AT FORT SMITH. ARK.
Many Residences and Public Buildings
Ground Into Spiinters Dead and
Wounded Are Dragged from the
Ruins by Survivors.
Cut a Wide Swayhs

Fort Smith, Ark, was swept Tuesday
night from end to end by terrific cyclone,
and "Wednesday the business portion of
the town was in ruins, while the dead lay
in long rows at the morgue. Fifty peo-
pie, it is thought, persisted in the fury of
the storm.
Coming from the southwest the cyclone
swept Fort Smith completely, smashing
everything along the way. The crash of
falling houses was first heard at IL o'clock
and before the sleeping inhabitants could
rise and seek refuge the full force of the
storm was upon them. Buildings went
down in heaps on every side. One large
boarding house, struck by the full power
of the tempest, broke in fragments like an
eggshell. Fifteen bodies were taken from
that boarding house Wednesday morning,
and Y is thought that at least twenty
victims died among the falling timbers.
Che handsome new high school building,
recently erected at a cost of 100000, dis
solved like a fabric of dream. Two
churches fairly few asunder when the
cyclone pounded on their walls. Resi-
dences went crashing to the ground,
storss and business blocks followed IN one
hideous ruin. In a few moments it was
over-the storm had passed End the city
was in ruins.
In the blackness of the night, the up
roar of the falling walls, the cries of the
injured and the hurtling of flying timbers,
the uninjured citizens were for a time
completely panic-stricken. Toward mid
night, regaining their self-eontrol as best
they copid, they began a systematic in
ION, &c ba 10, II -.
an attack upon a number of fires which
had blazed up among the ruined buildings.
For time it seemed as if this new dan
ger would add equal damage to that done
by the wild work of the storm. Several
bodies, whether dead or living it Is hard
to say, were cremated in the flames be-
fore the fire department could overpower
the blaze.
Then. every physician in town having
been summoned TO the rescue, search
was begun among the ruins-a search in
the blackness of wild night, with
torches and lanterns for light, with the
cries of TIE wounded as guiding sounds,
with the shaking, tottering ruins on every
side as added dangers. Dead men and
women were found at every point among
the ruined houses-peoph who had been
killed as they lay in bed, as they sat in
their parlors, as they strove to fee.
Wounded-pinled down by big timbers,
bruised and stunned by the rain Ga bricks
and plaster-were intermixed among the
dead. These were cared for as best the
searchers ard the hastily summoned doc
tors could, while the death list steadily
grew and the row of bodies in the morgue
grew continually longer
Morning came and revealed scene of
horror and destruction. Among the
wreckaec, torn out of all shape the
storm, burned and blackened by tie en-
suing fires, were found more dead, more
wounded. The hospital was full to over
flowing. The morgue could hold no more.
Scores of people who had missed relatives
or friends in the wild uproar of the night
joined with the searchers, directing, aid
ing, digging among the masses of mason
ry, roofing up the fallen timbers and drag
ging away the shattered beams. No es-
innate can be made at this time Of the
damage done to property.
After tearing through Fort Smith the
cyclone yeered, whired to the southeast
and laid in ruins the town of Alma, nine
miles away. 1t is reported that Alma is
almost utterly destroyed and that several
people have been certainly killed, while
many ara missing