Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-07-15
FREAKS OF THE WIND.
Curious Things That Have Occurred
During Tornado Seasons.

DurAMS lOTnOuO seasons.
From the Chicago Interocean.
Many curious things tending to show the
irony of fate have occurred during the tor
nado seasons in the west. In a certain I'LL
nois town, down Egypt way, there stood
side by side church and saloon. mar
row alley separated them. On a certain
Sunday morning the church was filed with
worshipers, the saloon with gamblers. The
temple of religion was wide open, inviting
the SHINING wayfarer to enter the fold and
be saved; the house of evil was shut tight,
it's doors and windows were barred, the
stranger was coldly left to pass on and
save himself. Inside the one were sixty
five devotees at tn. throne of grace; inside
the other were five devotees to a game of
chance called poker
A tornado descended upon the town and
struck in the neighborhood of these two
buildings. The church was demolished.
Some of its occupants were killed. Not
single on the saloon was displaced. The
gamblers were unframed. They ran out
side, when the noise of the wreck next door
reached them. and busted themselves dig
ging out from the ruins the bodies of those
who had assembled just across the alley to
be saved.
Between Napoleon and Versailles, Ind, a
party of emigrants camped in a forest,
which drew the wrath of the wind gods one
dark night path fifty yards wide was
cut through this dense mass of trees, throw
ing the tall timbers aside Like straws fly
ing from the sickle of moving machine.
The tent containing party of campers was
in the middle of this road of ruin. Not
thread of its canvas was raveled, not one
Of its sleeping inmates was harmed. A
week was spent in cutting a way out of
the tangled wreck to a road whence the
party could betake themselves to a safer
Cline The scene of this tornado is now
called Fallen Timber.
On the 9th of May, just passed, wind
storm visited the vicinity of the Bijou hills
in South Dakota. Everything in its course
was torn up or driven into the ground. The
ground happened to be honeycombed with
cellars, and these received loads of men and
women as fast as they could drop into them.
All the woodwork in sight was swept away.
A family named Clothier occupied one cell
lar. Mr.. Al Clothier heard something whiz
by his head, and, on looking up, beheld the
blade of large knife quivering against the
wall The blade of it had missed him by
an inch and buried itself in the fiat earthen
surface against which he was standing.
The knife had been blown from the East
man place. a mile away.
In Newton, Mo-, on April 81 this year,
family at dinner were transported in their
house hundred yards across stream and
set down on the opposite shore with such
force that the building fell to pieces. The
floor of the dining room descended to the
ground with it's load and remained intact,
without upSetunS anything except the
spoonholder and cream pitcher the ia
BILE. Tie walls of the house flew away with
the wind The house which had been next
to this family's Inflated domicile was not
taken away at all, but met with an equally
peculiar adventure, being twisted COM
pletely around on it's foundation, so that
| its front door looked into its back yard
after the storm had passed. The building
served hospital when the work of res
cuing the injured was begun.
On the 9th of last April the city Of
kirksville, Mo-, was the scene Of blow-up
which spread dead and dying victims over
a vast area of wreekage A state normal
school in the outskirts of the town was one
of the few buildings that escaped, although
residences all around it were scattered to
the winds. The students of the school were
congregated on the porch when the cyclone
appeared in the distance in the form of a
spiral-shaped cloud, which was bearing
down directly toward them. For many
anxious seconds they stood thus in the
| ripping a cash in the landscape leading up
| to them, but made no effort to escape
They said afterward that they simply
| trusted in Providence. There were about
a hundred girls in the company. The
storm swirled up into their very faces al
| most, then suddenly jumped aside, tore up
large nursery next door. and swept on 10
| finish the rest of the city The school
| trembled a moment, but that was all. 1t
| could hardly be said that Providence
wrought this miracle, since the list of
| pulidiHSS teSlFOyeu dIler the SCnOOI was
| spared included more than one church and
| several other schools.
| The cyclone seems to have some weird
| element of mercy in its violent breath
when it blows upon the very young and
| helpless. Tales of miraculous escapes of
infants from the whirlwind's teeth are
| numerous.
| Dakota twister lifted cot containing
| two children out of a falling cottage, car
| RED it unscatched through the dying de-
| bris, and set it down two blocks away.
| Neither of the children was even rolled off
| the bed nor in the least the worse for their
perilous flight among the storm kindlings.
| A grooming baby was found in field far
| from any house after a cyclone in Wyo-
| ming. 1t was lying on its back wholly I'M
scratched, and when its discoveries ap-
preached it gazed up into their faces and
| smiled. The parents of the waif were
found nearly a quarter of mile away,
buried in the ruins of their home.
| A small boy in Kansas was caught in the
| tail of a whirlwind and carried mile
| away, turned with a reversal of the storm,
and was brought back to within twenty
feet of where he had been picked up. He
was unhurt. save for a shaking up of his
nervous system.