River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1899-11-30

FREAKS OF A CYCLONE.
OF Such n Nature That Pho
tOgrapher shows That the Men
Took to Drink.


The details of the performance of the
recent cyclone at Herman, Neb., are
now becoming known. Eye witnesses
and photographs are the most sober
testimony available. The statistician
gives 80 as the number of deaths from
violence. but the insurance agents are
still estimating property losses. Her
man is about 40 miles north of Omaha.
The inhabitants of this agricultural
hamlet had provided their houses with
cellars and many had built specially
constructed cyclone cellars. While en-
gagged in the days work. cylindrical
cloud formed before their eyes from a
clear sky. The cry of cyclone gave the
impetus of terror to their flight and be-
fore the tempest reached the outskirts
of the town every villager had gathered
wife and BARNS about him into his cell
lar For minute almost interminab BILE
they waited. Then the crash came and
succession of sounds resembling the
Explosion of giant firecrackers told of
the lifting from their foundations of
house after house.
In one humble home the housewife
had been accustomed to place her pre-.
serves on a cellar shelf close to the floor
of the house. These jars extended
some three inches above the outside
ground surface. When the house was
uprooted like a sapling and carried 100
| feet the first investigator found the pre-
serves intact, rearing their heads above
the surface. An ice house was the vic
tim of one of the storms pranks. The
roof and half the walls were cut away
from the pack and deposited quarter
of mile away, but the blocks of ice
were not touched in the least. In the
photograph the anxious owner is specu-
lating as to the probable effect of the
suns rays.
Within 30 minutes from the climax of
the cyclone the stricken people were
| seeking consolation in malt and spiritu-
Gus liquors. The photograph shows a
| line of men to the extreme left standing
before an improvised bar. The burly
Dutchman to the right is pointing a
man TO the direction in which the latter
| lived only an hour before. The principal
hotel of the village was not touched by
the cyclone itself, but suffered from the
impact of tree used against its wall
| like battering ram. a massive boiler
was gathered in the arms of the cyclone
and whirled up hill 300 feet. describing
about the hotel a parabolic curve and
landing in mass of household furni-
ture. The hotel was directly in the
course but it made polite detour.
A piano. the one luxury of some home,
was carried high in the air distance of
300 yards and deposited feet downward.
The front and tail boards lay beside it,
torn from their fastenings. 4 little
girl was the first to touch ii in its new
position. and her ears were greeted by
kittens piteous NEW. Wedged in be-
hind the keyboard was a much dis
turbed kitten which had been caught
there in some mysterious fashion. The
children of the village are still discuss
ing the Kittens presence in the works
of the piano.
The town of Herman is now rising
from its ruins with that swiftness for
which the west is noted. and in few
months not mark win remain of the
bIighting hand of Nebraska cyclone.
N y Sun