A TERRIBLE TORNADO

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 249, 15 July 1920, Page 7

A TERRIBLE TORNADO

WHOLE TOWNS WIPED. OUT. Death, and wholesale ruin have teen the harvest of two tornadoes which swept over eight American States. Scores of people were killed, hundreds injured, and thousands robbed of their homes, while the damage ia counted in millions. These tornadoes wore the culmination of a series of storms which had been raging for a week across the United States. Whirling in a huge cone-shaped cloud from tho west, at a speed of 80 or 90 miles an hour, tho northern visitation cut a wide zig-zaff swathe of ruin through the States of Missouri, Wisconsin, Indiana,. Ohio, and Illinois. Apparently its fury was concentrated around Chicago. In its wild course it wiped several villages off the map. Solid brick and stone structures, such as churches and public buildings, were crushed into heaps of debris, and many fires wero started. Wooden dwellings were twisted from, their foundations and were turned upside down or wlirled about like so many sheets of paper. In most coses tho great wind came in a sudden darkness that shut out Ho, sunlight, or else it was preceded by a. torrent of rain. That grcaj; wind passed on as swiftly as it had come. For 40 miles around Chicago it left a belt of ruined suburbs, towns,' and villages. Elgin City, which tooographically is to Chicago what St. Albnns is to London, suffered severely. There alone the damage was estimated at i 1.000,000. A theatrical company was rehearsing when the theatre fell in on them, and two members were killed. In tho First Presbyterian Church the minister had just concluded his sermon with tho strangely prophetic exhortation to his congregation to be prepared, "for they knew not when they should be called." His hearers, numbering ono thousand, were about to leave when the storm broke. Manv worshippers remained to take shelter from the rain; and 75 children were in the basement schoolroom, when the roof of the structure collapsed, but. a» if miraculously, only three persons were killed. Ono family was seated at table in tho dining-room on the ground floor of their house when, in a twinkling, tho housfl wa* lifted clean over their heads, and whisked out. of sight, leaving them exposed to the torrent of ram, but unhurt. Edeerton, Indiana, with' a population of SOOiwas virtually destroyed, and in i Ohio the towns of Swanton, Greenvillo, : and Saabs Corners were razed. Soldiers were called out to guard tho Melrose ' Bank, which had its roof blown off. and I their orders were to "shoot to kill" if i anv looting was attempted. So far as- is known, the number of dead i is as follows:—Ohio, !!<!; Indiana, 27; ' Michigan. 9; Atalanta (Georgia), 78; La. ; Grando (Georgia), 50; Alexander City (Alabama), 11; Agricola, 5; West Point, Milner, and Madon, 1 oach.