Lower coast gazette., 1909-10-23
FATALITIES COUNT BY SCORES.
Cyclone Carried Away Everything in Its Course.
Injured Will Go Into Hundreds in Five
States-Property Loss Great.

Memphis, Tenn.- Special dispatches to
Inc Commercial Appeal from the vast
scope of country covered BY the cyclone
and hailstorm of Thursday night in five
States give information of close to three
score lives snuffed out. Doubtless the
entire death list will fall not fur short
of a hundred, making this one of the
most disastrous storms from the stand
point of loss of life in recent years in
This part of the world.
In addition to the dead there are &C
counts Of people injured by the score.
They were swept away or sucked away
Ivy the wind pressure. They were caught
under falling trees and under collapsing
walls. Nci her Young nor old. male nor
female, wa, spared, and under the ruins
OF homes filters, mothers and children
we're caught and crushed. The list of i'll
iured will run to several hundred.
The property loss is difficult to csti-
mate, and can be expressed only in gen,
"ral terms. The storm passed over an
opulent country, well settled up and in
a high state of agricultural and indus.
trial development. Many cities, towns
and villages were visited, and non of
them escaped without more or less loss.
From the Mississippi river on the west,
and even across the river in Arkansas,
the storm passed through West and Mid
dIe Tennessee, touched the northeastern
corner of Mississippi, swept over North
ern Alabama like a yeritable Bosom of
destruction, and with less force, yet with
fatal results, it crossed into Georgia.
Millions of dollars will not account for
the homes thrown down, factories RACED,
churches demolished. barns and outbuild-
ings swept away, fences strewn over the
ground, timber %uprooted and twisted to
the ground, crops pulled out by the roots
and scattered over the fields, roofs curled
mp and carried away, windows smashed,
cattle killed, electrical wires broken, rail-
road traffic suspended and all the thou
sand and one items that must be reck-
oned in making up the tally of the
storms damage.
This cyclone made its first disastrous
descent at Denmark, Tenn, where two
people were killed, many were injured,
practically every house in the town was
blown to- earth, and fire came along aft
erward to consume the last vestige of
the village.
Thence southeasterly the funnel.shaped
wind Travelled.
Here is a resume of reports from vari.
Gus points, showing the extent Of the
damage:
At Whiteville, Tenn, a factory and
the Presbyterian church were damaged.
In Haywood county the Christmas
school house was destroyed, and the
children escaped death by having been
dismissed just previously. Tenant houses
were wiped off the plantations, and many
tenants were injured.
At Stanton one man was killed and
the Presbyterian church was destroyed.
At Parsons, Tenn, houses were blown
down and one man was caught and killed
Under the timbers of his own home.
At Wartrace, Tenn, buildings were
blown down and q swath was cut through
the timbers.
At Haley, Tenn, a negro settlement
was wiped out.
Selmer and vicinity--23 dead.
Storm Found Historic Stage.
At and near the Shiloh battlefield, with
it's national park and its many historic
associations, occurred the most frightful
loss of life and greatest destruction of
property. The identity of twenty-three
dead in that vicinity is fixed by the
dispatches at hand, and later reports
from isolated localities will probably
swell this death list. The number of
injured is so great as to defy reliable
estimates. The injury to the national
park property viii run UP into the hun.
dreds of thousands of dollars. The lit
tie hamlet of Pittsburg Landing, ia
miliar to students of the Civil War, is
wiped off the map. The hotel and the
little stores are blown away, and many
of those who tenanted the buildings went
to death in the general chaos of flying
lumber and falling timber. Not a tree
is left standing on the Shiloh battlefield.
In the park, where many of the States
Of the North and South had honored the
memory of their sons who had fought
over those fields with monuments and
shafts, those mementoes are injured be.
yond repair, such being the case notably
with the monument erected by the State
of Iowa, a noble shaft rising GO feet in
the air, which was broken off in the
middle by the force of the gale.
Continuing the roster of death and de.
struction into Alabama, it is found that
these records have been made:
Near Scottsboro, three were killed,
many injured, tenant houses were de-
stroyed.
At Collbran, Ala. two are dead.
At Russellville, Ala, 81 are injured,
three or more are dead, many are In
jured at the Tennessee mines.
There are accounts of wide damage in
Georgia, but though there was some loss
of life in that State, the destruction was
by no means as great as in Alabama and
Tennessee.
Aid Asked For Key West.