The age-herald., 1901-03-27
Tornado Against Hospital.


 that devasted large districts of Birm- ingham on Monday morning@ean be real ized by an inspection of the splendid new st. Vincent Hospital on high hill at the top of Twenty street the largest hospital in the south and the most per fectly appointed and equipped fin America As Is well known. St. Vincent's was built by the Sisters of Charity at a cost of some s300,0o0 about per cent of which or, say, s15,oo0 being contributed by Bir- mingham people.
 The Rev. Father Lennon at Emmits- burg Md, is the general superior and executive head of the Society of the Sis ters of Charity in America. Yesterday Sis ter Chrysostom, the superior of St. Vim cents, received this greeting from Father Lennon:
 'I praise God you have fared so well. Give every possible assistance to the suf- ferersr'
 When this telegram came the Sisters were ministering to twenty-two of those persons who sustained personal injuries Gll TOT whom accOnHioudlioi h"' desired
 If Father Lennon could have arrived with his telegram he would have been amazed to discover by unquesuonable evidence the marvellous solidity, strength and durab bility of that noble hospital building, which remained as steady and unshaken as the Twenty street l,;ii ic btIIdpd A place even was the clustering cracked, no joint or groin of the structural body had parted or been strained. The struc- ture stood as solid as the hill 1t crowned, and yet 1t stood the fullest force and fury of the tornado. That awful wind which ended a dozen lives, wounded a multi tude. and demolished hundreds of houses clearly widened some hundreds of yards west of the hospital, and so ascended the hill and struck the building on three dif- ferent sides, as the fallen trees demon strate conclusively. Giant trees all around the hospital were uprooted or twisted off level with the ground, and loose stones in the hospital grounds were rolled from where they lay when the tornado began.
 But not one brick of that splendid edi- flee was disturbed except at one point, Two massive pieces of lumber blown from no man knows whither struck the north eastern corner ward on the fourth floor. One piece drove in one of the pressed bricks of the outer wall and dislocated two other bricks, but the wall at that height being twentyfour inches of solid brick and cement, no real damage was done. This piece rebounded from the im- pact of that unyielding wall, and then entered the unoccupied pay ward, fol- lowed by sill larger beam, which struck the steel ceiling of the ward and did no further damage than to knock off few ounces of cement, except that the heavy plate glass and the heavy oak window sashes were completely splntered. Whence came those beams of lumber? :? The room they were blown intoPis two hundred feet higher than the points where the tornado did greatest damage.
 At one point heavy plate iron cornice was broken and twisted into rolls that looked not unlike huge twists of tobacco leaves.
 The total damage to St. Vincent's, con- fined almost entirely to plate glass, oak en sashes, and inside shutters, amounts to something like s1500; and never was any life of the two hundred inmates in danger. Yesterday afternoon the Sisters of Charity received contributions of s101.S0 from Pratt City to help them along. They are now put to immense expenses for charity patients, and the loss by the tor nado comes heavily upon them.