SOMETHING LIKE BLOWS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXV, Issue 4254, 3 July 1895, Page 5

SOMETHING LIKE BLOWS.

A telegram from Sioux City, Indiana, of May 3, says: — "A violent tornado came along this way this evening and passed three miles north-west of Sioux Centre, a small town forty -five miles from here. It killed a large number of people and distributed houses and cattle over the neighboring country in a way that tornadoes usually do. Ten towns were damaged. The loss of life and injuries is placed at more than 100. The towns in the path of the wind were Perkins, Doon, Hull, Orange City, Sioux Centre, Ireton, Lemars, Sheldon, and Alton. The storm passed from north-east to southwest. The destruction of property was enormous. At midnight word was received here that four schoolhouses near Sioux Centre were destroyed while lessons were in progress. In each schoolhouse from three to ten children were either killed or injured. Many of the children were carried a quarter of a mile or more through the air before they dropped. Two little daughters of John Koster, a farmer, living near Sioux Centre, were picked up as they were leaving the schoolhouse and dashed into a wire fence. Searching parties have been covering the scene of the storm all day, and they came across dead bodies at almost every *urn. The storm started three and a-half miles north-east of Ireton. The first signs of its approach were noticed at that point, where it tore down a section of the fence of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad. It moved first in a north - westerly direction, crossing the tracks of the Sioux City and Northern road one and a- half miles north of Sioux Centre. A quarter of a mile further along it turned back to the northeast, and moved again jn that direction for several miles. Then it swung to the northwest once more. Half a mile south-east of Perkins it again swerved to the north-east, and passed almost directly through Perkins. The path of the tornado was about one-third of a mile wide, and its total length was about fifteen miles. After it passed Perkins nothing further was heard of it. The destruction of the schoolhouse where George Marsden was teaching furnishes a pathetic story. Not a vestige of the building remained. Mr Marsden was found some distance away, in a field. Two of his scholars were close beside him. Two little daughters of John Koster, pupils in the same school, were found clinging to each other, covered with mud, tangled in a wire fence. The residence of Mr Haggie, close to the schoolhouse, was swept away like a straw, and his eldest daughter (who was indoors when the storm struck it) was found in the branches of a tree near by, so badly injured that it is feared she cannot live. All his other children were killed. A furious gale swept the county of Norfolk in England on Sunday, March 24. During its continuance, which only lasted two hours, it blew down over 2,000 trees on the Shottishan Estate ; on the Prince of Wales's estate at Sandringbam more than 3,000 ; and the destruction on the Gunton Estate (Lord Sheffield's) exceeded 4,580— in one orchard it uprooted 152 apples, etc. Such a wholesale destruction of timber was never before known in the county. It demolished a wing of the Norwich Workbouse, and sent hay, corn, and straw stacks flying in all directions.