The Tornado in Iowa and Illinois
MONSTER TORNADO SWEEPS ACROSS RIVER—DESTRUCTION IN IOWA—THE STORM-CLOUD OVER ILLINOIS—GALE AND FIRE IN CHICAGO.
The monster tornado that wrought such havoc in Omaha leaped across the Missouri River and swished its wicked tail through Council Bluffs. Then it sped northeasterly, wrecking several villages before it finally disappeared.
DESTRUCTION IN IOWA
Reports from Mills County stated that it caused loss of life in every town in the county reached by telephone. Many deaths occurred at Glenwood and at Council Bluffs. Scattering towns all through the district reported one to two deaths.
Eastern Council Bluffs suffered heavily, the storm breaking in the valley just east of the town proper and following the lines of the Milwaukee, Rock Island and Great Western railroads for a distance of a mile.
The storm, which was accompanied by hail, rain, sleet, lightning and a gale which blew seventy miles an hour for a time, was felt most severely in the northwestern section of the city, where houses were overturned, windows broken, trees uprooted and electric light and trolley poles blown to the ground. Nearly fifty small fires resulted and hundreds of men, women and children fled from their homes in terror.
Considerable damage was done to Des Plaines, Park Ridge and other suburbs. The property damage in the city and suburbs was estimated at more than $500,000.
THE STORM-CLOUD OVER ILLINOIS
Illinois also suffered severely from a tornado on the night of Easter, March 23d, and the following morning. The storm was less severe than that which struck Omaha, but the wind was blowing at a rate of seventy miles an hour for a time, and in Chicago alone thirty-two structures were damaged and a number of persons killed. Out in the state the heaviest suffering was at Rockford, Elgin, Wheaton, Bloomington, Galesburg, Peoria, Erie and Des Plaines. The aggregate loss in other communities was great.