The Robesonian. [volume] (Lumberton, N.C.) 1870-current, 1908-04-30
FRIDAYS DEADLY STORM.


Report Serious VIZ ckage-
Two Thousand and Five HUN c
dred Business Houses Total {
Wrecks II cm arkabIe Expert t
enceS.
New Orleans, La, Dispatch. 2sLh.
The totals Of death, misery
and ruin caused III fur South
ern States by Fridays tornado
came to hand today in approx
mately correct form. Briefly
stated they are:
Killed, about $50.
Injured painfully or seri-
ously, 1900.
Homeless, several thousand.
Towns reporting serious
wreckage, 46.
Habitations and business
houses, practically complete
ruins in these towns, about g.
500. |
The above figures do not in
clude the wreckage on plant
atoms and farms, scores of
which were struck and damaged.
The number of dead will never
be known accurately for the
: reason that about 800 of them
were negroes and they were
buried in many communities
without careful records being
made of their numbers. While
: some of the first reports giving
apparently reliable death lists
5 have since proved nevertheless
remote places which are late in
reporting their dead have serv-
+ ed to hold the total death list
uniformly around $50. The
6 manner in which this death list
n has grown for two days, in
P spite of continual subtractions
e from early reports, has been a
q melancholy index of the inter-
State scope of the disaster.
lie COURSE OF THE STORM.
By following the wreckage Of
towns, the general direction Of
% the tornadoes can be traced
,e closely. Apparently the storm
struck in three separate cur
re rents, each describing the arc
1t of circle anatravelling toward
y the northeast.
=, The first Of these strucl
through northern Louisiana
1e Mississippi, and into Tennessee
list before daylight Friday. The
e. second appeared further SoutI
u.s. about breakfast time in centra
~ Louisiana and Mississippi
r. This apparently was the por
in tioR of the storm which swep
of on through Alabama and Geor
we gia on Friday night and Satul
ne day morning. The third POI
" ton eff the storm appeared dur
by ing Friday afternoon, furthe
in South than either of it's pred'
OF cessors. This was the storr
NJ which demolished Amite, La
,I w. and Purvis, Miss, the tw
!" in which the wreckage Wa
ed worst.
wn Why the fatalities were s
I'd, unusually large is apparent t.
'eo day from a glance at the mas
of photographs which has al
th rived here from many portion
asst Of the tornado belt. They a
tell the same story. Who
O9. blocks of what were formerl
. little residences and cabins Ii
- spread over the ground in sci
,oh arate boards. If a huge lun
ION Der pile had been scattered owe
The areas, the number of 1ndivid
to al boards, unattached to an
on thing, could scarcely have bee
The greater. Many of these planL
nd show very few breaks whe,
to they were separated from II
OIL other construction. Under tn
'he mass of wreckage many hui
~ dred persons escaping witho1
~ one in hundred escaping wit
voJ out some injury. The house
tod which we're thus scattered abo
ent were mostly negro habitatior
The The homes of the whites he
ate together better, and the pilot
and graphs show many Of the
ght with half the top of the upp
'tU- half Of the structure ripped O.
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