The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado Part 31

The scenes in the wrecked sections in Terre Haute brought tears to the eyes of the rescuers, whose attention often was called to the dying, trapped in the debris of their homes, by agonizing screams for aid. Some died before they could be freed from wreckage and others who were removed died afterward.

NATIONAL GUARD ON DUTY

A company of the Indiana National Guard was placed on duty in the devastated district early Monday morning while the work of searching the ruins for dead was still in progress. Over the entire area were scattered all kinds of household furniture, wearing apparel, beds and bedding.

Looting began within a few moments and the police were at first too busy caring for the injured and removing the dead from the debris to protect property, but the members of the National Guard soon established an efficient patrol and the looters were not in evidence afterward.

TOWN OF PERTH LAID WASTE

The tornado which visited Terre Haute also struck Perth, in the northern part of Clay County, about ten o'clock and then vanished in the air. No lives were lost there and only one person was injured.

Nearly every building in the little town of 400 population was wrecked or damaged. A brick store building, five two-story houses and seven cottages, the Congregational church, a school house, a three-story structure, barns and outhouses were completely demolished.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE TORNADO IN PENNSYLVANIA

STORMS THROUGHOUT THE STATE--ALARM IN ALTOONA--FURIOUS WIND IN WILLIAMSPORT--HEAVY STORM IN SHAMOKIN--COLUMBIA IN DARKNESS--A VERITABLE TORNADO IN SCRANTON.

The disturbances in the atmosphere which wrought such havoc in Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois and Indiana were also at work in Pennsylvania. Altoona, Williamsport, Marietta, Columbia and Scranton were among the towns suffering the greatest damage. The flood situation throughout the Keystone State will be treated in a later chapter.

ALARM IN ALTOONA

The storm struck Altoona on Tuesday, March 25th. With a crash that alarmed the entire neighborhood, eighty feet of the 162-foot steel stack at the Pennsylvania Central Light and Power Company's plant was blown down. The wind tore madly through the city and the rain fell in torrents. Many houses were unroofed and a number of smaller buildings were entirely demolished. No one was injured, but damage to the extent of at least $2,000 was reported.

FURIOUS WINDS IN WILLIAMSPORT

A heavy wind and rainstorm swept through Williamsport on the same afternoon, following a few hours of clear weather that came in the wake of twenty-four hours' rain. It unroofed a number of houses in the west end of the city, blew away the roofs of several cars in the Newberry Junction railroad yards, partially demolished a car inspector's office, sent twenty men in a panic from the second story of the New York Central offices, which they feared would be blown to pieces; blew in the front of a store on Grove Street and scattered canned goods for a block down the street and swept a path through a grove in the same section, prostrating a dozen giant oaks.

Train service through Williamsport was seriously deranged all day Tuesday. A landslide that covered both tracks of the Pennsylvania Railroad for sixty feet, with a ma.s.s of mud five feet deep, three miles east of Renovo, completely upset the train schedule on the Susquehanna Division.

The slide occurred about seven o'clock in the morning, and it was not until eleven o'clock that the eastbound track was opened and pa.s.senger trains were let through. The westbound track was not cleared until the morning. While the blockade existed special trains were run from Williamsport.

HEAVY STORM IN SHAMOKIN

A terrific wind storm from the northwest swept through Shamokin Valley and Shamokin, followed by rain, which fell in torrents. This storm also occurred on Tuesday. Crops in country districts were torn up and badly damaged, while lowlands were flooded. Roofs on a number of barns and out-dwellings were blown away, and telephone and telegraph wires were put out of commission.

COLUMBIA IN DARKNESS

Columbia was struck by a severe electric storm accompanied by a downpour of rain on Tuesday evening. Lightning struck the local electric plant, doing considerable damage and putting the town in total darkness for the night. Many residents and storekeepers were compelled to resort to candles to help them out during the evening.

A VERITABLE TORNADO IN SCRANTON

In Scranton the storm of March 25th amounted to a veritable tornado. The Round Woods section of the city suffered most. The Clemons Silk Mill, owned by D. G. Derry, of Catasauqua, was unroofed and a 150-foot section of the roof was deposited on the adjacent engine room, partially demolis.h.i.+ng the structure. The two sixty-foot smokestacks in the rear yard fell on top of the engine house. The roof of the warping department also fell on the engine house. The back walls of the warping department fell into the yard, while the upper part of the front walls fell in. The machines were six feet from the walls. The girls crouched under their machines and escaped serious injury. Several fainted and were carried out by foremen.

Amelia Davis, a warper, was. .h.i.t on the head by a brick as she hurried from the second floor. Tessie Carey, of Minooka, sustained a black eye and lacerations of the left side of the face by falling bricks. Gus Minnick, a repairer, working in the engine room, had just set his dinner pail where one of the stacks fell. There were altogether one hundred and fifty girls at work, but outside of bruises and scratches they were uninjured. The property damage was about $20,000. Much silk on the looms was ruined.

A large tower was blown off a school. Three houses in the neighborhood were also badly damaged by the wind. The storm caused destruction in all parts of the city and adjoining places.

Trees and fences were blown down in all parts of the city and in the adjoining country.

The storm came from the west and its approach was preceded by an inky black sky which, coupled with thoughts of the havoc of Sunday's storm in Nebraska, caused a general consternation. A heavy downpour accompanied by thunder and lightning followed the tornado.

CHAPTER XXV

THE FREAK TORNADO IN ALABAMA

FREAKS OF THE WIND--PITIABLE CHAOS--THE HERO OF LOWER PEACHTREE--EXTENT OF DAMAGE.

Weird tales of horror and misery attended the tornado which swept over the little town of Lower Peachtree, Alabama, on Friday, March 21st, wrecking the entire village.

After the tornado had pa.s.sed, corpses with hair stripped from heads and divested of every thread of clothing were picked up. Naked men and women ran screaming in the semi-darkness.

Chickens and hogs stripped of feathers and hair wandered in bewilderment among the ruins. Nailed unerringly into trees cleaned of their bark were pickets from fences that had been swept away. Where once had stood a big steamboat warehouse near the river was left the floor of the building standing upon which were the entire contents of the warehouse untouched by the terrific whirls of the wind.

In the backyard of the Bryant home, buried in debris, was a chicken coop, not a splinter awry. Within it was a goose sitting meekly upon a dozen eggs which she had not left.

The blast wrenched an iron bed from a house and wrapped it around a tree trunk as no human hand could have done.

Crossing the river from the town it had desolated it bore away half of a soapstone bluff many feet in height and left the other half standing unmarred.

Miss Mary Watson, a visitor in the Stabler home, was crossing a hallway when the tornado struck. She was swept through the hallway and to the rear of the house, where she was blown against a tree and her back broken.

PITIABLE CHAOS

In the business neighborhood everything was swept away except two grocery stores. They were thrown open as dispensaries of free provisions.

No semblance of order could be brought from the pitiable chaos of the wrecked town until Sunday afternoon, when cool heads prevailed and the survivors and visitors who offered a.s.sistance were regularly organized into committees to attend to the needs of the sufferers.

Troops from Fort Oglethorpe, with hospital corps and supplies for the relief of the sufferers arrived Sunday night and administered to the needs of the injured and homeless.