Arizona republican., 1913-03-25
CHICAGO HAS
 SEVERAL DEAD
Five Are Known to Have Pel'ished There and Fifty or More Injured When End of Tornado Strikes Illinois Metropolis
ASSOCIATED PRESS DISPATCH


 CHICAGO. March 24.-Five were killed. fifty injured. thirty-two build ngs wrecked and scores of structures damaged by the storm which swept this city and suburbs early today. The storm was accompanied by hail, rain, sleet and lightning The gale which blew at the rate of seventy miles for time was felt most severely in the northwestern section of the city where houses Were overturned. windows broken trees uprooted and electric light and trolley poles blown to the ground.
 Nearly fifty small fires resulted and hundreds of men. women and child ren fled from their homes, scantily clad There was considerable damage at Desplaines. Park Ridge and other suburbs. The amount of property damage in this city and suburbs is estimated at five hundred thousand dollars
 Passengers on the Burlington train told how they sat fascinated in the coaches and saw a great dark cloud skipping enthusiastically about it's work of destruction on the Nebraska prairie yesterday. Many times the train was just abreast or behind the storm and stopped to pick up the dead and wounded. and brought them to Omaha. A graphic description was given of the collapse of small towns under the onslaught of the funnel shaped cloud Passengers sat through it, glued to their seats as they witnessed the de- structiOn of RalstOn and then aided the injured caught in the wreckage of houses. They left many dead in the debris of factories and homes leVelled to the ground The town of Benson suffered even worse than Ralston where the train arrived just behind the storm. The scenes which greeted them on their arrival at Omaha were even more awful. as in the midst ot the deluge scores of fires made it appear that the city was burning. An eye witness, was a Chicagoan ! who withheld his name to avoid pos sihle shock to his invalid wife He ! told of scenes in Omaha when the 1 train stopped there He said: 1 'I was just recovering from what l l had seen on the train when we 1 pulled into Omaha with the injured It was night, then. but such night 1 the sky was lighted with the grea, | red glare and the streets were filled l with people who acted as though they l were mad. Many of them fled into the city from the outlying towns. but 1 the majority were residents. Tc make it worse, it was raining-a yer itable deluge. Frequently the cries ! of l,n hai rlA ,t h. station were drowned hy the terrific crashes of thunder
 ''The town is burning and we vii all be killed, some one kept cryins 1 and this added to the fear of others i There was no sleep for many of tn passengers aboard the train-Womel ] were half sick with terror. As tn train left Omaha l could see bi! hotel burning. The flames shot int the ar--a great torch above the sur
 rounding flames
 George Peckham of Lincoln. Neb
 said:
 l "One farmer at RalSton told m
 that for week he had premonitio
 that something was going to happe and was prepared for the worst Fl
 had been standing on the doorstep when he noticed a funnel shape
 cloud. He called his wife and fou
 children and all sought refuge in th
 cyclone cellar, which he had finishe
 digging the day before Five minute
 later his house went sailing away.
 All the passengers were lucky. w were ten minutes late when we neare Ralston Had we been on time W
 would have been standing at the Iii tile station when the storm struck