The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-09-30

or those Wno olcQ unknoWn anu uH-. noticed. The destroyed homes were the homes of the poor and the humple. They who escaped, escaped with only the clothing they wore and they wore buttlittle clothing They are today de- pendent upon the city and upon their more fortunate friends for the clothes that protect them from the rain aud for the food that fights off hunger.
 Scene of Desoinffon.
 No greater scene of desolation was ever witnessed than Shis mass of lum. Der and timber indiscriminately en- tangled that marked the site of prob ably the most populous section, and the poorest of Pensacola. The aroused sea overran these wooden houses and beat them to pieces with heavy timber and wreckage picked up on the bay. Dynamite could not have destroyed them more effectively.
 ( A man can walk halt a mile square on the debris and never know when he is above the street or over the site of the houses. A Pensacola patrolman walked disconsolately afnofg the ruins Out of the savings of his salary he had built six of the tenement houses; today only the ground upon which they were built remains.
 Mike OLeary, typical Irishman, one of Pensacola's best known characters and for twenty years e store keeper
 
 of 5000 swept away. His corner grocery store on zaragossa street is an empty and forbidding ruin. 1t Is the only one of eight buildings he own ed that remains to him
 0'Leary Was Warned.
 My son who lived across the way ran over to the store at midnight Tuesday night and says the water was rushing Into his house.
 said OLeary, Ego on with your says I've lived here twenty years and the water never came here before. But we went to the door of my store The storm was blowing a gale. i stepped on the sidewalk and stepped into two feet of water. I knew the dang CT then. ran back and got the women folks out of my house and we all waded up to the Story house block up the street. We had been there less than an hour before5the water over r ran the lower floor. We started. but Narragossa stret was running like A miiirace The timber of the bay was anoat then. piece came jumping along on the waves and knocked me down. l got broken rib from the lick Another piece came along ana gave me q lick on the arm It never broke it. but 1t might as well, for the good it has done me since. We got the women and children out in safety"
 AS O'Leary talked. an Irish sailor came from the bay
 Here Is Denny he exclaimed. "fIe was out on the gulf on the Francis Louise when the storm struck and his folks have ben thinking he was lost. Hey, Denny, your wife and children are safe. but that's all you've got. There's nothing left of your house except the place 1t stood on, and you can't find that and your furniture may be some where below Fort Pickens"
 sA< sA II peam smoking, without saying a word. Navy officers in Pensacola say at the navy yard alone the government suffer- ed loss of at least a million dollars. The army, with the combined losses at McRae. Pickens and Barrancas. sus- talHed for the government loss of betwenu sSo.000 and $f00,000.
 May Abandon Forts.
 Tn all probability historic Fort Me- Rae will never hold another garrison of United States soldiers When the survivors of the garrison were taken off Thursday morning 1t probably marked the abandonment of the fort for all time.
 Five of the men who formed the gar rison of McRae are raving maniacs in the navy hospital They live scontin- ualiy in the midst of the horrors of the stokm. In the hospital they shriek and beg the attendants to shoot and put  They are strong men and the surgeons are hopeful that their violent mania is only temporary No wonder Is ex- pressed that the men who underwent the horrors of that fearful night in Fort MeRae should lose their reason. The garrison had been in command of a non commissioned officer
 On Monday, previous to the storm, Lieutenant l.. S. Edwards. Philadel- phian, went over and took command of the eighty men in the fort Fort McRae faces the open sea and the brunt of the storm fell upon 1t. It was ex- posed to the fury of the southeast storm even more than It's sister, Fort Pickens. At its height, the storm dashed waves over the fort more than 30 feet above tide water. Early In the night the lower portion of the fort. including the quarters of the men, were submerged. Lieutenant Edwards or dered the men to the upper gun mount, the highest point of the fort. Sergeant Prentiss and his wife and boy secured permission to remain in quarters. be- iieving that to be the safest place In the fort. They were overwhelmed by water and Sergeant Prentiss experi- enced the horror of seing his wife ani son wrenched from his grasp by. tn, waves The bodies of both have been recovered.
 Chung to Guns.
 Tn the upper works the men clung to the heavy guns and prayed for their lives Sergeant Overlander and two of the privates were wrenched loose and swept over the walls of the fort By a happy accident. the wife of Lieu tenant Edwards and his infant, es- caped being in the terrible place during the storm. They had been visiting in Atlanta and Mrs. Edwards was ex- pected at the Fort Monday, but she wired her husband that she had been detained two days in Atlanta Lieuten- ant Edwards went up to Flomaton this afternoon to meet Ter to advise her to return to Atlanta for the scenes O. horror around Pensacola Bay are not yet over.
 The storm destroyed history not only at Ft McRae but the Navy ards where the United States government alone lost a million dollars of It's property. There Is not a craft of any description afloat at the Navy Yards. Navy officers who come from the yard to Pensacola have to come in the army boat Poe. Vessels that made history in the spanish American war are wreck cd up the beach.
 The Vixen, the gunboat Machlas, the Isle De Luzon are all beached. Ail take much in patience and money. The heavy coal barges with which the navy yard Is supplied were thrown high upon the beach. The wooden dry dock is total ruin. The heavy steel dock captured from the Spanish and brought to Pensacola harbor is, however, only