The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-03-30
TOLL MOUNTS ASSTORM TEARS WAY TO COAST Three Hamlets In Ken lucky Believed Entirely
 Wiped Out CUMBERLAND, MD.,
 IS INUNDATED Heavy Casualties Are Re- ported, But Details
 Are Cut Off
tL....a Wire to The A,s. .Merald,

(leAsod Wire W Ihe Aee.Hefalol
 CHICAGO, March 29.-At least 30 presons are dead, the fate of hundreds more in three isolated Kentucky ham lets, cut off from outside communities. tion, is unknown, and tremendous prop erty loss is being checked up, following a gigantic storm which has swept the west with high winds, blizzards, cloud bursts or tornados and continued Tn floods and destruction throughout the east.
 Beginning with cloudbursts as far west as the Pacific coast, the gale tore through the central states, taking its toll of lives and property as it went, and was expected to spend itself on the north Atlantic coast Saturday night before blowing off to sea.
 Three Towns Lost
 Reports, many of them fragmentary due to the unprecedented havoc in- flicted on telephone and telegraph wires, seem to have brought in news of most of the casualties, but early tonight 1t was still impossible to learn ihe fate of 1000 inhabitants of Heath, Lamont and Maxon, three small villages in western Kentucky which are reported to have been completely razed by tornado.
 These towns are on or near the Mis- sissippi river. The gale put out of commission the one telegr lph wire which connects them with the outside world, and river shipping on both the Mississippi and Ohio rivers for hun dreds of miles have been tied up com \ Tn the, northwest the storm took the form of blizzarAs, which disrupted transportation and isolated still other communities. Twisters ragged across the flat states of the southwest, level. ing hundreds of dwelling houses and destroying crops. Rivers overran their banks in the middle west and in Ohio and Pennsylvania, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars damage.
 Ten-foot snowfalls paralyzed rail traffic in Minnesota and thousands of miles of wires were down under the lash of snow, sleet and rain.
 Houses WhirIed In Air
 In some parts of southwestern Mis- souri the storm was so violet that houses were whirled into the air and fell with their human occupants crushed within them.
 As the gale hit the eastern central states, floods swept Cumberland, Md, and townships in the vicinity of Johns town, Pa, scene of the historic flood nearly 20 years ago.
 Cumberland's business section was inundated when the Potomac river oyerflowed it's banks and covered rail- road bridges at a number of points. The Casselman and Allegheny rivers in Pennsylvania also flooded seriously. Fully a dozen persons lost their lives in the tornado that swept the south west, it was indicated today by re- ports from the stricken territory. The loss of life may run much heavier, it is feared.
 Heaviest toll of life in the south was reported from Shawnee, Okla, where eight fatalities occurred. The wind storm cut 6 swath a block wide and four blocks l0ng through the residential district, razing nearly POO homes Many were injured.
 National guardsmen are helping in the work of relief.
 Two or three persons were killed in Siskeston and Charleston near Cape Girardeau, Mo-, by tornado, according to reports from Kansas City.