The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1906-10-31
GULF STATES SWEPT
BY FIERCE HURRICANE
Mobile and Pensacola Laid Waste
by Wind and Water.
IMMENSE DAMAGE TO PROPERTY


Loss Estimated at $50, 1000, 900 in the
, Various States Visited by the
Storm-Much Loss of Life Re-
= ported.
Mobile, Ala.--Loss of life various
ly estimatedfat from five to fifty per-
sons, many people injured, 1000
homes damaged, the business quarter
devastated and property loss of
fully s5,o0e,oO0 is the effect of a
forty-eight-hour tropical hurricane in
Mobile. The city is practically in
ruins. =. ...
There are no reliable figures to be
had as to the loss of life. Three ne.
groes are known to be dead, and
there are rumors that fifty persons
are lost, but as things are these ru-
mors cannot be verified.
1t Is feared, however, that when all
is known the life loss will be heavy.
The city has been placed under mar
tial law and looters will be summa-
rily dealt with.
Every church in the city has been
damaged, though Christ Church AMI
st. Francis Street Baptist Church SUI
fered more than the others.
Mobiles shipping suffered severely.
Many Of her river boats are beached
or sunk, all complete wrecks. Her
docks and those Of private corpora
tions are destroyed. The revenue
cutter Alert has gone down in Mobile
River. She was rammed by some un-
known vessel and sank Immediately.
The depth Of the water in the
wholesale district, which includes the
section from Royal street to the river,
was seven feet.
The wharves from Fraseati, the ex-
treme south end of the city, as far
up the river as Three Mile Creek are
total wrecks. This also includes the
new Mobile and Ohio docks and the
Louisville and Nashville docks.
Much fear is entertained for Fort
Morgan, Ala, where the Government
Quarantine Is located and many SOL
diers :quartered@r. The chances are
that much loss Of life has been caused
by the storm to those living on Dau-
phin. Island and other outlying ISL
ands.
During the hurricane trees, fell,
roofs crashed by the hundreds and
thousands of pieces of slate and other
debris were hurled about. Many peo-
pie were seriously injured and cut by
the flying slate and pieces of tin
roofs.
The fruit trees and the fall vege.
table crops all over Southern Ala.
5ama and Mississippi are ruined. So
also are the cotton and sugar cane
crops. One Mississippi planter said
that he would willingly accept SIS
Tor his cotton crop. -
The Mobile County Court House
was badly wrecked. The clock In It's
tower was blown away completely,
and now nothing of the clock re-
mains. ..,
All along the line of the Mobile and
Ohio Railroad huge trees lie fiat with
limbs torn off and twisted. The
streams are all out of the banks and
for twenty-five miles north Of Mo-
bile; looking to the right of the rail-
road, one sees only solid sheet OF
water running swiftly toward Mobile.
There are many farmhouses In this
inundated, section and many people
may have lost their lives.
r. Pensacola, F1a.-The worst sea
storm and hurricane that the Gulf
Coast has experienced since the viii
lage of Pensacola on Santa Rosa ISL
and was swept away LOT years ago
has struck here. Many lives have
been lost.
A large area of the section between
the city and the Navy Yard Is under
from five to ten feet of water. Many
women were taken from second story
windows and carried to safety in
boats. The estimated property dam
age is $3,000,000., Every house III
Pensacola suffered damage and many
roofs were blown off. The water
front is strewn with wreckage for
miles on either side of the city, and
vessels are piled on the wharves, or
There the :wharves once were. Big
iron steamships and many lighter
sailing ships are lying high and dry
up in the city, where the tide mas
never before been known to reach.
New Orleans.-Great damage to
the cotton crop was reported in dis
patches to the Cotton Exchange.
Baton Rouge reported about twenty
per cent. damage. Gallman, Miss,
reported rains which aattened the
plant down in the mud, and ;Natchez,
Miss, reported that there and imme-
diately across the river in Louisiana
the damage was probably twenty-five
per cent. No damage to sugar cane
has been reported.
Damage to property aggregatlng
more than S50,000,000 was done IN
the various States of the South that
the storm visited. -. =:
Two Missourians Indicted.
The Grand Jury returned indice-
manic AGAINST Robert M Snyder, or