CHAPTER XX
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."