Shot From the Gun of a Hurricane.
Thin strips of weather-boarding driven through a porch post, a marvellous example of the force of a hundred-mile-an-hour wind. Straws have been driven into brick walls in similar fashion.
(Upper photo taken from across the street; lower photo at close range.)
Courtesy of I. R. Tannehill, U. S. Weather Bureau, Galveston, Tex.
"When the storm was at its height, our anemometer blew away. When she went, the wind was howling cheerfully along at seventy-five miles an hour. The chap who was with me, a plucky fellow, suggested that we should go up on the roof and put up a new one. I thought myself that if we went up there, we'd be carried off like a couple of straws. But I wasn't going to have him think that I was scared. So up we went. My word, boys, but it was blowing! We worked for half an hour when the gale got under my coat and blew it open like a sail. In a fraction of a second I was being driven breathless to the parapet.
"Through the storm I heard a faint voice crying:
"'Take it off!'
"I tore the coat off and it flew up in the air like a crow, but it was almost too late. I was thrown against the parapet like a bullet. My shirt-sleeve tore and flew to ribbons, and I became conscious that my arm was hurting horribly. I fought my way back against the wind over to the roof and helped the other chap with the anemometer, which had nearly been erected when the wind caught me, and we got down the trap-door to the office of the Bureau. Then I keeled over. My arm was broken. My partner fixed it up as best he could."