Chickens and hogs stripped of feathers and hair wandered in bewilderment among the ruins. Nailed unerringly into trees cleaned of their bark were pickets from fences that had been swept away. Where once had stood a big steamboat warehouse near the river was left the floor of the building standing upon which were the entire contents of the warehouse untouched by the terrific whirls of the wind.
In the backyard of the Bryant home, buried in debris, was a chicken coop, not a splinter awry. Within it was a goose sitting meekly upon a dozen eggs which she had not left.
The blast wrenched an iron bed from a house and wrapped it around a tree trunk as no human hand could have done.
Crossing the river from the town it had desolated it bore away half of a soapstone bluff many feet in height and left the other half standing unmarred.
Miss Mary Watson, a visitor in the Stabler home, was crossing a hallway when the tornado struck. She was swept through the hallway and to the rear of the house, where she was blown against a tree and her back broken.
PITIABLE CHAOS
In the business neighborhood everything was swept away except two grocery stores. They were thrown open as dispensaries of free provisions.
No semblance of order could be brought from the pitiable chaos of the wrecked town until Sunday afternoon, when cool heads prevailed and the survivors and visitors who offered assistance were regularly organized into committees to attend to the needs of the sufferers.
Troops from Fort Oglethorpe, with hospital corps and supplies for the relief of the sufferers arrived Sunday night and administered to the needs of the injured and homeless.
THE HERO OF LOWER PEACHTREE