Great Disasters and Horrors in the World's History

by Allen Howard Godbey

LOOKING EAST FROM TENTH AND MAIN, LOUISVILLE.

destructive effects of a tornado are not always attributable to the direct force of the wind. A number of interesting incidents of the Louisville storm will serve to illustrate a now clearly established fact.

Mrs. Fitzpatrick and her family were in a two-story brick, 1433 Seventeenth street. They were all in an upper room and could not get out. The walls fell outward, while the floor still remained in its place. They climbed down unhurt.

James Smith (colored) lived with his wife and seven children in Congress Alley, in the rear of Falls City Hall. Himself, his wife and three children were crushed beneath the mass of bricks and timbers; the remaining four children were taken out more dead than alive. Yet, the house was not in the least moved from its place. The building was crushed by the wall of the hall, which fell outward. Similar was the fate of the laundry girls. The house in which they were was crushed by the top of the wall of the Louisville Hotel, which fell outward, toward the wind.

The colored Odd Fellows were holding a meeting in their hall at Thirteenth and Walnut. The two upper stories were blown entirely down. Several large circular holes were blown through the brick walls; one of these in the side away from the storm. Several received more or less injury, but not one was fatally hurt.

At 1315 Eighteenth street, was a magnificent new brick cottage. The roof remained, but in the west wall were made “six holes, round as a dollar, and large enough to admit a flour barrel.” It is added that the missing bricks were nowhere to be found.

Finally, take the experience of a grocer on West Market street:

“I was inside of my store, and my clerk was there, too. Standing on the pavement outside were policeman Harlow, a man named Charles Taylor, who said he lived in Jeffersonville, a negro whose name I do not know, and Carl Rice, an eight-year-old boy who lived with his parents in the rooms above my store. When the wind grew high and the hail began to pelt, Mr. Harlow attempted to open the front door of the store, which was closed, to come inside for shelter. At that moment the tornado came in all its fury. No one who was not in it can conceive of its terrific force. The suction from without, as the full force came, was so great that it was impossible to get the front door open. My clerk at work on it on the inside and Mr. Harlow on the outside, were as powerless against the wind as babies would have been in attempting to move a stone wall.

“But their efforts were not of long duration. The tornado forced its way in the rear of the upper stories of my building, and with impetuosity unequaled forged through the apartments against the front wall. This wall popped out and fell to the pavement below, upon those standing there, burying them in the debris. The front is entirely gone, as you see. Mr. Harlow and the little boy Carl Rice, were close up to the front door, and only a small portion of the wall struck them. Taylor and the negro were out on the pavement further, and they fared worse. Taylor’s leg was broken at the ankle, and he was internally injured. The negro had a hole knocked in his skull larger than a silver dollar, and was used up generally. Mr. Harlow was bruised, but fortunately has no bones broken, and is not dangerously hurt. The little boy’s head was pretty badly cut and bruised, but he is not in a serious condition.”