The Montgomery tribune. (Montgomery City, Mo.) 1892-1910, 1906-03-09
THE TORNADO
At MERIDIAN
THE CASUALTIES NOW PLACED
AT "a DEAD, 4e INJURED.
THE MONEY LOSS, si,2so 600
An Army of Men At Work Clearins
the streets Of WrcckaEe-sun-
day a Day of Funerals In
the City.

Meridian, Miss. March 5.-Before an
army of determined men attacking
Meridian's storm-swept and debris
strewn streets, the vast amount of
wreckage is giving way slowly but
surely. The Sabbath following the dis
astrous storm Of Friday was a day Of
funerals. The merchants and residents
of Meridian had never protected them
selves with storm or cyclone insurance,
so insurance agents will have little or
no auditing beyond the fire losses. A
million and a quarter dollars is now
thought to be a conservative estimate
of the damage wrought.
After leaving Meridian and entering
Macon, a suburban town, five miles dis
tnat, all traces of the storm seemed to
have disappeared. Little If any dam
age is reported from the country. Ad-
ditions to the casualty list have been
made, estimates now standing "a dead
and 46 injured, some fatally.
The storm performed its worst work
on Front street and in the Georgetown
and Fewell Survey suburbs, On Front
street the principal wholesale houses
were located. The Georgetown COM
munity is inhabited chiefly by cotton
factory employees, while the Jewell
survey is the residence district for en-
ployes of the railroad shops.
Scores of Homes Wrecked.
Fifteen buildings on Front street are
wrecked. The fertilizer factory, cleo
trio light plant and cotton mills are in
ruins, while 500 residences in the path
of the storm were either unroofed or
totally destroyed.
Fortunately, however, the tornado
did not pass over either the newer and
larger business portions Of the city, or
the principal residence district. Cen
orally defined, the storm followed the
lines of the Alabama G. Vicksburg and
Mobile & Ohio railroads.
Passing from southwest to northeast,
after striking the Queen & Crescent
freight depot and utterly demolishing
that structure, the cloud diverted its
Front street, it's outer edge also touch
ing Front street, where quite a number
OF buildings were greatly damaged.
Hundreds of families are either home
less or left without employment, owing
to the destruction of wholesale houses,
freight offices and manufacturing
plants. In fact, the poor people Of the
city are the greatest sufferers, the list
of dead and injured containing the
names of only a few persons of prom
inence.
Numerous hairbreadth escapes are re.
ported, and it is nothing short of a mir
acle that more lives were not lost, when
the extent of the storm and the destrue-
ton wrought is considered.
The work of clearing the debris from
the streets is necessarily slow. Nu-
merous brick buildings, from two to
five stories in height, were dumped into
the street, none of the walls above the
first floor being left standing.
Many of the homeless families are
negroes, their little cabins being torn
and twisted to splinters, and they are
either roaming the streets or seeking
temporary shelter among their fellows.
Fortunately, the several fires that fol-
lowed the storm did not add greatly to
the destruction. They were extin-
guished through the prompt work OF
the fire department and volunteer citi-
zens.
Seven companies of state militia are
still on guard and enforcing work by
negroes, 100 being at work Sunday re-
moving the debris. An order was Is
sued ordering the removal Of the troops
on Tuesday. Work of relief was con-
tiued all day and hundreds of mechan-
les will begin work of rebuilding at
once. Reports received from Macon,
Marion and Meehan Junction, all Of
which were reported destroyed, stated
that there were no fatalities at those
places. Meehan Junction escaped en-
tirely.
---