Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1913-08-06
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST g, 1913.
yASIIINGTON SWEPT BY STORM.
Wind, Hail, Rain and Lightning Give
City Bad Scare.

ram ana ndl! whipped DaCK ana
forth across tho nations capital
Wednesday afternoon, leaving death
and ruin in it's wake. Three dead.
scores injured and hundreds Of
thousands Of dollars worth Of prop
erty destroyed was the toll recorded
in the hurried canvass made when
the city aroused itself from half an
hour Of helplessness in the grasp Of
Che elements.
Out of the blazing sky, under
which the city was sweltering with
the temperature at 100 degrees,
came the storm, roaring from the
north, driving a mass Of clouds that
cast mantle Of darkness over the
city. The gale reached a velocity Of
almost 20 miles an hour, swept the
streets clear, unroofed houses. tore
detached small structures from their
foundations, wrecked one office
building, overturned wagons and car
riages in the streets and swept
WaShngton's hundred parks, tearing
huge branches from trees and even
uproOting sturdy old elms, land
marks OF a century.
AS the wind wreake6 its havoc the
rain came, and in five minutes the
temperature dropped from the hun
dred mark to between sixty and sew
enty. Then the rain turned to hail
and hai1stonoa haftarad an roofs on5
crashed through skylights and win
dows.
For half an hour the city covered,
paraiyzed, under tho beating of the
storm, every activity suspended.
Trolley cars, street traffic and tele-
phone service were halted, and gov
ernment departments suspended op-
erations.
The wind wrecked three-story
brick building occupied by the B. S.
Saul Company, real estate, and Is
persons were carried down in the
crash. w. r. Hilton. vice president
of the company; Thos. b. Fealey,
65 years old, clerk and an uniden-
titled man who entered the building
to try TO rescue those caught in the
wreck, were taken from the ruins
dead. Half dozen were taken to
hospitals seriously injured and
dozen men were treated for slight
injuries
The neatly kept lawns of the
White House were devastated. Three
huge elm trees, uprooted by the
wind, were thrown bodily across the
lawn and up to the very pulti;U Of
the building, blocking the drives.
President Wilson was seated in the
executive office when the wind crash
ed through several windows in the
White House proper
At the Capitol Heights.
The Capitol. set high above the
city caught the brunt Of the wind
rain, hail and lightning. The Sen
ate was in session when the hail
swept down with a deafening roar,
beating on the glass roof Of the
chamber. The tumult made further
business impossible, and, hurrying to
the Vice Presidents desk, Senator
Kern megaphoned with his hands a
motion to recess. The motion was
put, and although the Senators
could hear nothing, the Senate Quit
work for | . minutes. in confusion.
When the storm broke 35 paint
sers were at work on the dome Of the
Capitol, SWarming over the curving
surface or swinging high on shaky
Scanolding. William Reese, the
foreman, hurried to the dome and
got most Of his men to shelter in
side the big inverted bowl. But jim
Boyle, john Ford, Noble Bailey and
Bruce Jones were too late. Bailey
ana Jones succeeded in scaling the
dome in the wind and rain and gain
ed sheltered ledge, where they
"eathered the storm after trying in
vain to get inside. Boyle and Ford
We're caught on swinging scaffold
Just under the caves Of the dome. and
there they swung, buffetcd by the
wind, beaten by the hail and soaked
by the rain, while the flashes OF blue
lightning trickled around the dome.
down from the platinum lightning
points on the head OF the Goddess of
Freedom hat surmounts the struc-
ture. When the storm was over they
crept, shaken and bruised, to safety
inside the dome.