The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1912-07-03
PRESCOTTS, FORMERLY OF
FARGO, NOT HURT AT REGINA
Their HOtd, The King, Was Not Badly Damaged Grand
Forks Men Give Graphic Account Of the Terrible
Wind Storm Of Sunday Afternoon
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Fargo friends will be delighted to
learn that Mr.. and Mrs. VIM. Pres
colt, formerly of Fargo, where they
ran the Prescott hotel for years,
were not injured In the terrible tor
nado of Sunday night at Regina.
They have been running h Kings
hotel at Regina for about a year, and
although the storm hit the hotel 1t
was not badly damaged.
Mrs. Prescott's brother, Mr.. Ander-
son well known here, was not 50 for
tunate as will be seen from h fol-
lowing account of the storm as re-
lated by Grand Forks men in The
Times Of Grand Forks last evening:
David III. Beecher and George II.
Duis, leading business men of Grand
Forks, were in the Kings hotel in
Regina Sunday afternoon when the
city was visited by the worst cyclone
in the history of the dominion, They
assisted in the work OF removing the
dead and injured from the wrecked
buildings. Mr.. Beecher returned to
Grand Forks this noon. Mr.. Duis is
expected home tomorrow. To The
Evening Times this afternoon Mr..
Beecher told of his marrow escape
from death and Of the most thrilling
experience Of his life as follows:
MI. Duis and I occupied a room
on the third floor of the Kings hotel
which is only about 200 feet from
the telephone building, the first struc-
ture blown down in the storm. Indt
cations had pointed to a storm all the
afternoon. 1t looked to me like we
would have a thunder storm accom-
panied by some wind. However, /
never dreamed Of a cyclone although
it was very hot and close. About
$3.50 o'clock in the afternoon I went
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my grips. / was planning to leave
the city that evening. AS I walked
back to the hotel to check out it
seemed to grow hotter every minute.
I could hardly get my breath. Every
one about complained of the extreme
oppressiveness Of the atmosphere. The
clouds scudded across the sky as IL
playing a great game Of tag. The sky
looked wicked.
Storm Crashes on City.
"Just as / entered the room to tell
Mr.. Duis goodbye the storm broke.
There was a crash of glass as our
windows were splintered and sent
whirling into the room Pieces OF
boards came through the windows and
beat against the sides of the hotel.
The bed danced about the room and
it grew suddenly dark, dark enough
to need lights in the hotel. The hot
dT DuEhL IlLO IuS EOOII DIS 1LOul d
smelter. The roar was deafening.
For ten minutes this kept up. When
the noise had died away to some ex-
ten the rumble of the cyclone gave
place to the screams and a. OF
the injured and dying.
Never as long as | live will l for
get the sight that greeted us as we
stepped from the hotel into the Street
to see what had actually occurred.
'"The first thing we noticed as we
came u into the open was the ruined
telephone building. In the morning
we had admired the structure; a few
hours later we were helping pull the
operators from under the debris. Be-
tween the piles Of boards protruded
the arms, heads and limbs Of the tel
ephone girls. Brave men sickened at
the awful picture. Relatives and
friends Of the operators who had es-
capped injury and perhaps death stood
about the wreckage weeping and
wringing their hands.
dor Gods Sake Help Us"
"The appearance of the mounted
police-the greatest organization of
this kind in the world, l now believe
was a signal for everybody to take
hold and help care for the injured
and the dying. Everybody commenced
to work probably as they had Level
w ~ y bCASASH NASAA Ia eeAAN
children assisted in the removal Of
bodies and the injured. We all did
that We could, but it seemed as
though non of us could do enough
for those poor souls who lay in the
ruins calling to us to save them for
the love of God
"A man will never forget the cry
of for Gods sake help u.s. when 1t
comes at a time like this. 1t will
Il vino in his noTS a1Hya We
Experiences like the n I have
just gone through make a man stop
and think.
when we had worked at the tele-'
phone building for a time we continued
to the residence district. Here we
found conditions ever worse. We
saw men haul a beautiful woman
from the wreckage of one of the fin
est homes in the city.
mot far from this ruined home an
old man stood in the middle of the
street weeping bitterly. We asked
him if we couldn't help him in some
way. He told us that no one could
help him. His wife had been killed.
The little family had started for the
cellar when they heard the storm
coming. The father and children had
reached the cellar, but the mother
had been caught by a falling timber
and pinned under a pile of debris.
She was dead when the heart-broken
husband crawled up through the
wreckage to her side.
One Solid Mile.
The cyclone cut a swath OF de-
struction about 1000 feet wide, /
should judge, and destroyed a solid
mile of buildings.
1.-THE hotel in which We stopped was
only $500 feet from the bad district.
Had it been closer to the path of the
storm I might not have been here to-
day telling this story.
mr.. Duis and I made an effort to
find out whether any former residents
of Grand Forks or n persons from
this city had been hurt in the storm.
We knew that a number of former
Grand Forks residents lived in Re-
gina. None of them was hurt so far
as we could learn. A Mr.. Anderson,
brother to Mrs. Prescott formerly of
Grand Forks and Winnipeg, narrowly
escaped being killed. He vas slightly
injured by a falling wall. He was out
in his automobile Sunday afternoon
and stopped at the hotel shortly before
the cyclone to leave the children. He
was still in his car when the storm
came on. He left the machine and
ran across the street. AS he leaned
Up against a brick building to keep
from being blown down the street the
roof of another structure nearby blew
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