FURTHER DETAILS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 58, 18 September 1928, Page 11

FURTHER DETAILS

REPORTS FROM STRICKEN AREAS (Received 18th September, 1 p.m.) WASHINGTON, 17th September. Tlio Bed Cross is enlisting all available surgical aid to follow the initial contingent of relief workers into tho stricken Florida area, where the 1926 disaster ia now being vividly re-enact-ed. Spasmodic reports reaching Jacksonville, whore tho relief campaign is being directed, adviso that Miami wus virtually unharmed. Tho tornado is

reported currently to bo Hwoeping in tho direction of Tampa, after leaving a wake of desolation at Palm Beach. An eye-witness prior to the disruption of the telegraph service reported having seen houses and barns in the vicinity of Tampa lifted intact into the air and hurled hundreds of feet through tho air, and shattered to bits in the descent. Tampa residents who presumed that the tornado was like to spend itself before reaching the city are now said to be evacuating it in droves. It is regarded as likely that the tornado wiil lose its fury upon reaching the Gulf of Mexico, but great fear is expressed at tho ultimate damage atTampa. The Government experts, who were despatched posthaste to Palm Beach are bending every energy to prevent the spread of typhoid. Engineers and construction experts are working ceaselessly in an effort to re-estab-lish tho electric current and rcp-iir the damage to the water system. Reports from the mid-west indicate that tho tornado has abated completely, and work at Rockford, Illinois, is now proceeding to cope with the flood waters which yesterday threatened to inundate the city. Official reports indicate that tho situation in Porto Eico is increasingly desperate. It is estimated that 700,000 are destitute and facing starvation. The water supply is entirely cut off, anil food prices are at a maximum, for which the United States Red Cross has authorised its Porto Rico branch to purchase 20,000 dollars worth of food and distribute it immediately. A United State Government destroyer en route for Porto Rico has been converted into a hospital ship for use with tho Red Cross.