The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1913-07-11
WILD WIND ANTICS
The Havoc That May Come When
a Tornado Breaks Loose.
STORMS PLAY QUEER FRANKS
Houses Have Been Carried Bodily Into
the Air and Exploded, and Half
Building Has Been Swept Away,
While the Rest Remained Unframed.


the Air and Exploded, and Half
Building Has Been Swept Away,
While the Rest Remained Unframed. J
The weather bureau at Washington
aas been collecting statistics and facts
about cyclones and tornadoes for many
years, and the experts have succeeded
in securing considerable valuable data
about the big winds; but, after all, the
freaks of the storm are the things that
give 1t special interest, and if all these
were properly classified some remarka-
bic reading would be furnished. Every
visitation of O tornado adds to this val
Nable storehouse of queer freaks.
1t is not uncommon for the whirling
wind to cut a house In half, demolish-
Ing one side and leaving the other un-
disturbed. This happened In an Iowa
tornado and the part that was left in
tact was SO little disturbed that the
clock on the mantel continued ticking,
as If nothing had happened.
In the Texas town of Sherman,
which was visited by a tornado in
1896, two houses were picked up and
carried into the air. where they ex-
ploded Every one in them was severe
ly injured except baby, which did not
receive so much as a scratch. A man
milking a COW in a shed saw the COW
and shed carried up In the air, but he
was not so much as touched. Not a
drop Of the milk in his pail was spilled
or disturbed.
In the St Louis tornado of the same
year a carpet in the parlor of one house
was pulled up by the twister and car
ried away few hundred yards with
out so much as a rent being torn In It,
The tacks had been pulled up as neatly
as if extracted by q careful carpet
layer.
In another house the bedclothing and
mattress were lifted from the bed, and
the bedstead was left intact A resi-
dent was carried through the roof of
another house with the bed and drop
ped a quarter of a mile away without
injury. The mattress saved him in the
fall, and he picked himself mp In a va
cant lot to dress without knowing ex-
actly what had happened to him.
The "twisters" have been known to
pull nails out of shingles and then go
on to pick up q chimney bodily and
carry it through the air. In Kansas
one picked up a buggy and landed it in
the branches of tree At another
time it ripped the harness completely
off horse and left horse, buggy and
man uninjured. In Louisville, In 1890
a tornado carried the roof off a house
and pulled child from the mothers
arms and carried it safely to another
| house six blocks away.
But these are merely among the
| harmless freaks Of lie big wind. There
are others more heartrending. 1t has
dismembered human beings. tearing
arms and legs from the body, and
twisted the hair of women into ropes
In Kansas it drove a piece of scantling
six inches square through the body of
| a hog. At another time it blew in the
door of a farmers house and carried
| the owner away on the door, to drop
| him in the branches of a tree. The
tornado did not hurt him, but he broke
| ground
No one has succeeded in measuring
! the full force of a tornado, but 1t Is
known to travel at the rate of 200
miles and more an hour
Tornadoes are exciting more general
attention than formerly because of the
greater number of towns and villages
located in the tornado belt. Each sue
| cessiye one is more dangerous than its
predecessors because 1t is apt to find
more human material to destroy. For
merly it might travel half the length
of a continent without finding anything
In its path to destroy except grass,
trees and OCCASIONALLY the crops of
solitary farmer, Today, If it followed
the same route 1t might pass over
dozen villages and towns.
| The only thing that can possibly
| break the force Of a tornado is a range
of mountains 1t may create wild
| havoc among the trees and powders
| of a mountain, but 1t cannot carry the
mountain itself away. 1t will uproot
| giant forest trees, suck the water from
/ wells and streams, twist and demolish
iron bridges and carry up houses, but
the mountains are proof against the
| mighty force Of the wind.
| Until we know how to control the
tornado or find some means Of battling
! It, It's menacing danger must always
| be source of considerable uneasiness
in the great plain sections OF the coun-
try. But, like earthquakes, the tor
nado and cyclone do not come every
year, and sometimes they defer their
visit for a decade or so, for which we
may be thankful George e. Walsh in