The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-09-17
CYCLONE LITTLE, BUT FURIOUS
SPRINGS UNHERALDED FROM
THE SEA ON JERSEYS SHORE.
Big Enough to Hold Up the Giant Oceanic
piled Up Small Graft ON Both Sities
Of the Bay-Coney Island Piers wrecked

A vagabond cyclone, not more than 100
miles in diameter, startled the weather
prophets yesterday morning by dancing
in from the sea across New Jersey and
this section OF New York. 1t was the
fiercest twister for its inches for a long time
that has tumbed waters uprooted trees,
unroofed buildings, driven small craft
ashore and smashed window glass here
abouts,
1t was born somewhere at sea southeast
Of New Jersey. 1t travelled ON it, own
track with unusual speed and ito rotary
velocity varied from so to 10 miles IN hour.
The thermometer OF Local Foreoaster
Emery showed that for the twenty minutes
ending at HAS o'clock there was an easterly
gale fiuctuating between "a and IS miles.
In the open sea the force Of the blast wa
higher.
The White Star steamship Oceanic, IN
from Liverpool and Queenstown, was near
ing Fire Island when the little giant swirler
hit her. She's the third biggest liner In
the world, but her commander decided
to lay her to q couple Of hours and let the
great blow 60 by. She had had tenn
pestuous trip, but the wind up beat all
the other weather put together. She began
her voyage in mighty blow, which forced
her to bring her Queenstown pilot, John
Whalen, to this port, a. he couldn't leave
her in the tall combers
The centre Of the storm passed over this
city about clock in the afternoon The
wind, which within two and a half hours had
| shifted from east to southeast, whirled
| into the southwest and west, making lee
| shores of weather Shores and vice versa,
and having already slammed dozens OF
little anchored craft against the Staten
Island shore, began slamming dozens Of
them on the shores of Gravesend bay. The
In the forenoon, bounded up again with
phenomenal swiftness. At $50, when the
wind had faded to a zephyr, double
rainbow appeared in the eastern sky, cut
into prismatic sections by ragged-edged
clouds. The cyclone had gone north.
Telegraphic communication between this
city and the West and Connecticut and
Massachusetts was badly crippled. The
worst damage was along the New Jersey
| coast, where the poles were blown down.
Lines running through Philadelphia TO
| Chicago and other populous centres Of
the West were broken in many places by
| falling trees But as the repairs here
merely necessitated the joining Of wires
or the stringing Of new ones between poles,
it required only few hours to make good
the damage
Lines running to Boston and to the towns
Of Connecticut, as well a. along the Hudson
River as far north as Poughkeepsie, were
either blown down or parted by falling
trees
The telephone people announced last
night that their wires to Long Branch,
Asbury Park and all places in Monmouth
county, N. j., were down and no con-
nections could be made. Atlantic City
and points south On the Jersey coast
could not be reached at all. Calls for
places in Connecticut and east as far as
Boston we're being refused, One wire
was working to Boston by a roundabout
way, on which the service was so poor as
to render it practically useless. Com
munication with Philadelphia points west
and places up the State was all right it
was said.