The Daily Missoulian., 1913-01-28

Gertrude ana Olive Ayers Of Stark
have received from their cousin, Merle
\. Foster a letter that
LEYTE'S tells in dramatic style
TYPROON Of the tNphoon which
swept the Philippine
islands last fall Mr.. Foster is in the
governments educational service in
the islands and was in the direct path
Of the storm. He tells the story sim
ply and completely: "Monday morn
ing October 1G) it began to rain and
rainod all day. 50 hard that the school
house was flooded and we had to dis
miss part Of the afternoon. During
the night it rained twenty inches and
by Tuesday morning things were so
wet that we We're compelled to stop
the school session. The wind
was already breaking down bamboos
and taking some of the npa off the
roofs: many people We're ont with
ropes ard poles trying to fastcn their
houses SO that they would not get
blown over. BY 9 Il. m. the barometer
was dropping rapidly and about 10
o'clock it began to blow in real earn
est. our cook became frightened and
served dinner at II o'clock; that was
fortunate for us. for the roof left the
kitchen within an hour and cooking
was absolutely out of the question. AS
soon as the real rain began to come in
through the roof and stand in little
lakes on the floor, We put as much
as possible of our property in our
trunks and went over to the officers
quarters of th" ronStHbularY.
early in the morning the wind was
blowing from the north, but later it
changed gradually to the west and
from then until about 1:30 y. ~ it
continued to blow from that direction,
getting stronger with each gust. From
& a. IN. to p. IN. We had S.l5 inches
away and we have had no record
sincc-althoueh plenty Of rain. At 2
p. m. the wind ceased and | went over
to the observatory. The barometer
was still falling and at $50 p. IN. it
reached the lowest point CHS mm) at
A. nm. below normal height, It then
began to. rise about as rapidly as it
had fallen; shortly aftcrWard the wind
came back with fun force and gradu-
ally changed to the south, coming
over twenty or thirty miles of sea with
nothing to break the force, it hit the
observatory building reasonably hard.
| The walls and roof We're OF stone
and tile laid in cement. 1t was y
small building, too, and though there
were five of us inside to hold the
windows shut after they We're locked
| and braccd it was pretty interesting.
! II ,l, ,f
wind was like a large sledge- hammer
! hitting with a great deal of concen-
| trated energy behind it. BY
| this time the wind was beginning to
| go down a little and the waves were
coming up rapidly Many houses near
! the beach which We're not entirely
! blown down We're washed out to sea;
great stones We're thrown onto the
| beach: the pier of rock ON which the
harbor light was placed was torn down
and destroyed, though there We're
| tons of rock in ii, and parts of
the wooden lighthouse were thrown
high on the beach. I'll not
take time to explain about the many
other things which have been of more
or less interest to us during the past
two week. We could tell about
the bodies washed on shore from the
wrecks and Of others found in the
sand; of abace and cocoanut fields
destroyed, how many people are eating
| the soft wood of the cocoanut trees
of the dead animals along the trail, OF
bridges washed away about waite,
| standing in pools and full of dhob
:, itch il Won get Your feet wet in il thai