Douglas daily dispatch., 1927-10-01
88 Bodies Are

Continued from Page One)
plainly that the tornado, in cutting
a crescent shaped swath which en-
braced the exclusive residential sec
tion, humber homes and business
streets, had hoped, skipped and
jumped from Linden Boulevard,
street of tall apartment houses and
! fine homes, it hoped some eight
blocks to Vandeventer Place, for
n1erly the most exclusive residence
center of st. Louis. and thence three.
blocks to Cook the center of a large
district devoted to homes for neg
roes
In. the central west end, the area
of chaos extended between Sarah
street and Newstead avenue, north
kfrom Forest Park avenue, across La
/ clede avenue, West Pine and Linden
BoulevardS, widening north of Olive
street and reaching Grand Boule-.
! ward near Vandeventer Sarah street
continued to be street of heavy
damage as far north as Easton ave-
nue.. Near Playground Park the
! trend towards the Mississippi river
became more direct. Between Fair
ground Park and Merchants Bridge
and towards Mckinley bridge,
dense path of wreckage extended
along north Ninth and adjoining
streets which marked damage in
Herbert, Montgomery and other
streets
OF all the damage done by far the
greater seemed to have occurred not
by the unmeaSured twisting and lift
ing power of the tornado itself, but
by explosions of air inside buildings
themselves as the twister passed and
created an outside vacuum into which
the inner air rushed.
Along Lindell Boulevard from
numbers 1000 to 44OO sturdy brick
and stone structures today exhibited |
entire walls gone from pressure from
inside, while in some instances Jag
ged holes were torn as if a r1iightvI
shell had been fired through from
the inside.
In the relatively poorer communi-
ties, with their more fragile struc- I
lures, however, the full power of the
twisting and lifting ability of the
tornado was vented Flimsy. strutures
existed no more excepting as broken
and twisted piles of debris.
There were pitiful scenes as house,
wives, bent as the cleaners fumbled
in the remains of their little homes,
or, full days tidying up done, sat h
disconsolate on front door steps, pic
lures of utter detection amidst the
wreckage.
Pnnrdc 10 7ooyNn1 Oh IS
and every other manner of covering
was used in a crazy-quilt patchwork
pending time for more thorough re-
habilitation. :.
Possibly the saddest story of the i
wrath of the elements was revealed
today when rescuers delving into the
debris of the huge central high
school . on Grand avenue, just about
opposite Vandeventer Place, found
the bodies of five little girls. Some of 3
them were pinned down by steel
beams, and, after hours of digging
acetylene torches had to be used be-
fore the bodies could be released.
When the school was struck hundreds / D
of lives were endangered, but only
i've lives were lost and 18 children
injured. Seven school buildings, with
800 pupils, were in the tornado's
bath.
Mayor Victor Miller's appeal for
undS for relief met a ready response
oday and tonight $4,000 was avail.
IDLE in contributions Hundreds of
homeless again were cared for to- Il
hight in National Guard arpnories
md fed from field kitchens placed u
n service by the Red Cross disaster
orce. Downtown hotels were filled to :
apacity, in some instances. No de- /
nand was made for tents and ap- q
'arently all the homeless had found q
roofs. $
With the st. Louis police force of
800 men fatigued by "a and 36 A