Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1913-06-26

FREAKS OF THE TORNADO.
interest in the Big Wind Grows
With Increased Population in Tor
nado Belt.

The weather bureau ut Washington
has 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 it special interest, and If all these
We're properly classified some remarka-
Bile reading would be furnished. Every
visitation of a tornado adds to this val
liable storehouse of queer freaks.
1t is not uncommon for the whirling
wind to cut house in half, demolsh-
ing enc 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
We're picked up and carried into the
mir, where they exploded. Every one in
them was severely injured except q
baby, which did mot receive so much
rs 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
49,
pail was spilled or disturbed.
In the ST. Louis tornado of the same
year carpet in the parlor of one
house was pulled up by the twister
ami carried away a few hundred yards
without so much as rent being torn
in it. The lacks had been pulled up as
neatly as if extracted by a careful
carpet LAYER In another house the bed
clothing and mattress were lifted in
tact A resident was carried through
the roof of another house with the bed
and dropped a quarter of mile away
without injury. The mattress saved
him in< the fall, and he picked himself
up in a vacant lot to dress without
knowing exactly what had happened
10 him.
The "twisters'' have been known to
pull nails out of shingles and then go
on to pick up chimney bodily ana
carry it through the air. In Kansas
one picked up a buggy and landed II
in the branches of tree. AT another
time it ripped the harness completely
off horse and left horse, buggy, ana
man uninjured. In Louisville in 1890
a tornado carried the roof off mouse
and pulled a child from the mother
arms and carried it safely to another
house six blocks away.
But these are merely among the
harmless freaks of the big wind. There
are others more hartrending. 1t mas
tlismembered human beings, tearing
arms and legs from the body. anu
twisted the hair of women into ropes
In Kansas it drove a piece OF scanning
is inches square through the body OIL
hog. At another time it blew In the
Fdoor of a farmers house and carried
the owner away on the door. to drop
him in the branches of tree. me
tornado did not hurt him. but he broke
his neck falling from the tree TO the
ground. No one has succeeded III
measuring the full force of tornado,
hut it is known to travel at the rate Oh
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. Eaeh sue
.,cessiye one is more dangerous than lts
predecessors, because 1t Is apt TO hiio
more human material to destroy. FOR
merly it might travel half the iehs,h
of a cantinent without hndlns any
thing in it's path to destroy eNeep'
grass. trees, and occasionally the crops
of solitary farmer. Today, IL Ioi'
lowed the same route, II mlsh, pas
1 over dozen villages ana towns.
| The only thing that can possibly
break the force of tornado is range
of mountains. 1t may create WIG ma
voc among the trees and powders OF
mountain, but it cannot carry ths
mountain itself away. 1t VIII uproe
giant forest trees, suck the water IRON
wells and streams, twist and demoiisi
iron bridges. and carry up houses pu
the mountains, are proof against .n'
mighty force of the wind. Untii W.
know how to control the tornado o.
lind some means of battling it, its men
acing danger must always be source
Of considerable uneasiness in the grea
Main sections of the country. But hN'
earthquakes. the tornado and cycioh'
1 do not come every year, ana so,he
Times they defer their visit 1or a oec
ade or so. for which we may De tnahh
/, ful-Harper's Weekly.