Year: 1871

A FEW minutes past o'clock the awful
visitation opened its fury without mo-
ments warning, blowing from the south
west, coming up the river in a diagonal
line inclining eastward in its advance
terrible whirling force, compacted in a
path of about 600 or 800 feet wide, and
rushing onward with roar like an angry
sea and the velocity of birds flight. All
another time perhaps it will be possible to
collect particulars of the coming of the
tempest, but yesterday hardly witness
could be found who could give coherent
statement. They all seemed to think that
it smote the earth as with a sudden blow,
and they knew not that it was coming
until it was upon them. They did not see
it coming, but only felt its awful seizure.
The tornado seems to have barely touched
our southern limits, but to have kept east
of the city, and no very alarming damage
was done until 1t struck East st. Louis.
Here it manifested its dreadful power,
wi hin space of three minutes, in a man
ner never before equaled in this part of
the country, and almost indescribable.
Let the reader imagine an irresistible air
torrent rushing against the frail, artificial
structures of man, situated on an exposed
river bank. In moment the air is filled
with splinters, dust and fragments of all
kinds. Houses, sheds, and other structures
disappear as if leveled by the blow OF
Titan, or fly to pieces and are borne along
in the stream of the storm. The East ST.
Louis elevator was the first edifice struck
on the Illinois shore, u strong frame build
ing. The roof was torn to ribbons, and a
large portion of it, like a black meteor,
shot northward and fell far away in the
Ever. Then came the destruction
/ Of hnncpg. n
rooted, and some were rent to pieces, walls
and all, and the unhappy inmates buried
| in the ruins. The stately steamer Mollie
| Able, lying at the East st. Louis wharf,
had her texas blown off and hurled in the
river. The bridge tug Hewitt had her
wheel-house disposed of in the same way,
and became a wreck. The whole forest of
| framework over the east abutment pier of
the bridge was twisted up like bunch of
reeds, in the fingers of the storm, and
crashed down in a pile of chaotic ruin
Railway cars and engines were dashed
down on their sides, or whirled off the
tracks, as if they were paper boxes. Whole
trees were either struck TO the earth, as If
the trunks had been severed by cannon
shot, or lifted bodily, and carried yards
away from where they moment before
stood. Put all these distinctions together
| anu III ulI WIN u
maze of whirling objects, and imagine a
| sky as black as ink, scanned every moment
with tongues of lightning and reverberat-
ing with thunder crashes, while there is a
steady roar of great rushing on earth,
and some idea may be gained OF the out
burst of the tornado on East st. Louis. 1t
was an awful scene-one never to be for
gotten. The very suddenness was terrible.
Here, a moment before, business of all
kinds was in progress, and now the whole
population is shivering aghast, while tur-
moil, and destruction, and great noises rage
all round them, on all sides, mingling with
which is the piteous cry of the agonized
sufferers, caught between timbers or pres
sed between weights that crush them
to death. So swift, so sudden, SO short
was the storm, that it seemed like the pas
sage of some enormous invisible missile
dragging ruin in its train.


The tornado did not last more than
three minutes. As above stated, II
seemed to come from the southwest


aud, touching the Illinois shore first al
the elevator, passed along the river bank


incliaing eastward and terminating at the
track of the Toledo, Wabash d Western


Railroad, nearly at the head of Bloody Is


land, and, at this point, about 800 yards


from the river, It's speed is estimated al


between 60 or 10 miles an hour, and III
strength was almost irresistible where


any fat surface was exposed. What dam


age was done south Of the city was noi