Other Damage From the Nebraska Tornado
GREAT HAVOC IN NEBRASKA TOWNS—DESCRIPTION OF THE TORNADO—YUTAN A SUFFERER—THE TUMBLING HOUSES OF BENSON—CURIOUS TRAGEDIES—HOUSES TUMBLING ABOUT.
The storm which lashed its way through Omaha on Easter Sunday had already carried havoc into other Nebraska towns. William Coon, president of an automobile company of Lincoln, Nebraska, gave a stirring description of the tornado as he saw it from the platform of an observation car on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad:
DESCRIPTION OF THE TORNADO
"For miles," he said, "it seemed as if the train were being pursued by the storm. We were approaching Ralston, Neb., when I first noticed the strange cloud mounting the sky. Before that it had been clear."
Mr. Coon, from his observation car seat, saw the storm strike Ralston. "The passengers sat as if glued to their seats when the cloud struck," he said.
"The engineer brought the engine to a stop and the passengers ran over to the wreckage of the houses. We could hear the groans of dying men and the wails and shrieks of injured women and children. I entered a house, or rather what had been a house, and beneath me lay a woman. I looked and I knew that she was dead. We got all of the injured out of the ruins and brought them to the train.
"We were about to leave when our attention was called to a little house some distance from the others. It had been wrecked and moved from its foundation, but we found a mother and her little baby lying upon a bed uninjured.
"The cloud wheeled and made towards South Omaha. We were not far behind, but our way was blocked by the debris the tornado had thrown on the tracks. Then, too, we stopped frequently to pick up the injured. There were some with their limbs torn off and all were cut and bleeding."
A Chicagoan, who withheld his name, told of the scenes at Omaha when the train stopped there. He said:
"I was just recovering from what I had seen on the train when we pulled into Omaha with the injured. It was night then, but such a night. The sky was lighted with a red glare, and the streets were filled with people who acted as though they were mad. Frequently the cries of the wounded, unloaded at the station, were drowned by terrific peals of thunder."
It is difficult for any one who has not lived through a tornado to have any conception of what such a storm can do. Tornadic force means anything more than one hundred miles an hour. There have been instances where tornadoes have shaved off the stone sides of buildings as if they had been sliced away by a stonecutter. Forecaster Scarr, of New York, said that the tornado that wrought destruction in Nebraska may have been of the resistless kind that simply ground stone and brick to dust and carried up its electrified funnel the remnants of every building it struck. The tornado finally became almost like a mass of whirling steel, revolving faster than the blades of the swiftest planer and cutting everything to pieces in its course.
YUTAN A SUFFERER
The tornado first struck the little village of Yutan, southwest of Omaha. Yutan was practically wiped off the map and its population of four hundred left desolate. After the buildings had been razed the wreckage caught fire. "The town is burning! We'll all be killed!" some kept crying, and this added to the fears of the others. Many persons were killed and many injured. Waterloo, a village of about equal size to the northeast across the Platte River, suffered like damage. Wires were snapped off in all directions, and it took many hours to gather and circulate news of the disaster.
Leaving desolation behind it the tornado swept at a rate of possibly one hundred and fifty miles an hour into Berlin. This little village had a population of about two hundred. The storm killed seven and injured thirty. The habitations were virtually wiped out. A church, an elevator and part of the residence of State Senator Buck were all that remained standing of what was a prosperous town.
THE TUMBLING HOUSES OF BENSON
On its way to Omaha the tornado struck Benson and Yutan. Benson is a thriving town of over three thousand. Here property damage was great and many persons were injured. As the houses began to tumble a little girl dressed in white started from one of the houses and ran down the street with her hands above her head. Just then the side of a house came soaring through the air, and shooting suddenly downward it struck the child and buried her beneath it. When the storm had passed, the injured were lying all about the streets.
At Ralston, a suburb of Omaha, many were killed and much injury and destruction left in the path of the tornado. Late in the afternoon a copper-colored cloud was seen mounting toward the sky. The cloud grew rapidly and was traveling at tremendous speed. It assumed the form of a funnel and the air was filled with a curious, piercing noise. It swished across the railroad track and swept on its way toward the little town.
Then the storm struck the town. Houses collapsed as though they were of paper. The roofs went sailing away and the sides fell in. Passengers in a passing train watched the destruction, and a cry of horror went up from every one. It was an awful sight.
A farmer was standing on the doorstep when he noticed the funnel-shaped cloud. He called his wife and four children, and they all sought refuge in a cyclone cellar. Five minutes later their house went sailing away.
CURIOUS TRAGEDIES
Edward Mote, his wife and three children were sitting in their home chatting when the tornado suddenly carried them and their home to Paio Creek, one hundred yards away, and dropped them into the water. Mrs. Mote was drowned.
Postmaster D. L. Ham, his daughter, Mrs. Kimball, and his grandchildren were standing in the doorway of their home when the wind struck. Mrs. Kimball and her two-year-old daughter Frances stepped outside the door, which slammed shut. Their bodies were found among the debris. H. E. Said and wife, bride and bridegroom of a month, were in the Ham house. Warned of approaching death by Mr. Ham, they sought solace in each other's arms. Thus they were found dead. Mr. Ham was slightly injured.
HOUSES TUMBLING ABOUT
There was a big threshing machine standing near one of the houses, and when the cloud struck it shot straight up into the air and was carried about forty rods. Houses were rolling and tumbling along the ground. A box car was carried along by the terrific air current for a quarter of a mile. When it split open six or seven men, who turned out to be part of a repair gang, dropped out. Some lay very still, while others feebly crawled about.
A dozen other towns in the section of Nebraska surrounding Omaha were hard hit and many farming communities were destroyed.