Читать книгу Great Disasters and Horrors in the World's History - Allen Howard Godbey - Страница 10

LOUISVILLE TORNADO—FALLS CITY HALL.

Their startled imagination saw the missing one dead or dying under the huge piles of fallen buildings. There were excited cries and calls and wailing of the living; a mad rush and frantic tugging at the ruins, from beneath which were sometimes heard shrieks for help or groans of the dying. To add to the universal terror, fires broke out in many places, threatening imprisoned wretches with a fate more horrible than the crush of falling walls, or timbers, bricks or iron, hurtling through the air. Before help could reach them the flames took hold on some and hushed their cries forever. Fortunately, the fire-alarm connections were left intact, and as alarm after alarm was sent, there was a dashing of the engines to the rescue, and the whole fire-department was presently engaged in extinguishing the flames, or recovering the living and the dead. Hospitals and morgues were suddenly improvised in sheds or shops, where the wounded were cared for, or the dead were deposited to await the recognition or claim of the living.

Falls City Hall was the theatre of the principal loss of life. It was a brick building fronting on Market between Eleventh and Twelfth. The ground-floor had long been used as a market, and contained forty or fifty stalls of gardeners and butchers. These stalls were closed and the keepers were absent at the hour of the disaster. In front on the second floor were three small rooms, one of them utilized as an office, the other two as toilet rooms. Behind these was a large hall, and in the rear of this still another hall, in which a young lady, her father, brother and sister being present, was teaching a dancing school. There might have been sixty-five persons in this room, though one witness says twenty-eight. In one of the small rooms seven men, constituting the Executive Committee of the Roman Knights, was holding a business meeting. In another room a band of musicians, fifteen in number, were going through a rehearsal. Some decorators were at work in the large hall, preparing it for some coming occasion. On the third floor were assembled the Jewel Lodge No. 2 of the Knights and Ladies of Honor, with an attendance of a hundred or more. In an adjoining hall the Humboldt Lodge No. 146 of I. O. O. F. with seventeen members was in session. The whole number of people in the building must have been nearly or quite two hundred. In an instant the fearful wrench of the cyclone had twisted the building into fragments, and tumbled it in shapeless ruin upon the inmates.

Ten minutes after the collapse might have been seen a frantic multitude hastily gathering from all quarters, among them many women clutching vainly with their fingers at the slate roof, and madly tearing at the wreck beneath which the imprisoned and wounded were crying for help. Presently, fire broke out, but it was happily extinguished. The work of rescue was now organized and speedily set in motion, but an hour elapsed before the first victim was extricated. This was a lady, found sitting upright with bruised head and broken arm. She told of her vain effort to escape, and of the position in which she had last seen her companions. Meanwhile, some were digging in the center of the debris in answer to a voice which grew fainter and fainter until it was hushed forever. The work of rescue was now shifted to the other end of the pile.

James Hassen was foremost among the workers, and on reaching the hall room of the Knights and Ladies, he took from the ruins the first body, which proved to be that of his wife, and who expired in his arms. He gently laid his dead wife aside, and hurried again to aid in recovering the rest. Presently, ten women were reached, clasped in each others arms—all dead but one. The dancing room was

AT WORK IN THE WRECK.

reached. One lady was taken out fatally hurt, and one after another her three children, unconscious, but destined to recover. While her husband was urging the rescue of his fourth child, still somewhere beneath the ruins, an under-current of air having been admitted, the fire again broke out with startling fierceness, and the furious heat compelled a suspension of the work. The groans of the imprisoned were now changed to fearful shrieks, while the watchers, helpless to render aid, screamed and ran wildly about with anxiety and horror. Three or four lines of hose were turned upon the flames, and they were subdued; but an hour, in which probably many a life went out, had been lost from the work. By twelve o’clock many dead and wounded had been removed from the ruins. The dead were largely in the majority. Many of these exhibited no outward wounds, and had been apparently suffocated by gas escaping from broken pipes.

But the reader may be spared further details of the recovery at Falls City Hall. Suffice it to say, that two days were required to remove the wreck and demonstrate the precise extent of the calamity. On this spot, about eighty persons had lost their lives.

The narratives of some of the survivors will serve to show that while the tornado comes without warning, the heaviest wind is not just at first: and a cool head may sometimes profit by the interval to escape. Sailors have a saying that the “tail” of a gale is strongest. A young man who was taken from the wreck of the hall says:

“I was dancing when a flash of lightning, followed by a crash, made me think that the lightning had struck some part of the rear of the building. The next moment, the big doors that enter into the big hall in front flew open. I continued dancing, and cried to some of the boys to close the doors. They did so, and were bolting them, when they were again forced open with such force as to knock down everybody around them. Then the window sashes were blown in, and the building commenced rocking. I saw that the house was about to fall, and I hallooed: ‘The walls will go next.’ I ran to the dressing-room, and I think most of the girls followed me. I got under a table and held fast to the legs, thinking that I might be saved in that way. Then the walls began crumbling, and the lights went out, and the floor descended like an elevator. The crash stunned me for a moment, but finally a flash of lightning showed me a hole in the debris, through which I might have crawled had not my leg been pinioned between some timbers. There were people all around me, and they were crying for help; but there was no one to aid us. I tugged and strained, but I could not get loose. Finally, I heard my father’s voice, and answered him; and directly he crawled down the hole. It took him three-quarters of an hour to extricate me, and then we both crawled out. If there had been help at once, we might have saved others, as I knew about where they all were, but they were more or less hurt.”

That less than half of those in the building should have been killed is a matter of wonder. The manner of individual escapes can only be inferred from one or two more which we subjoin.

One of the lady members of the lodge of the Knights and Ladies of Honor relates:

“I went to attend the lodge meeting and when all were present the calamity came. There must have been about seventy-five people in the room at the time of the tornado. Hone of them were able to get out before the building fell in. The first intimation we had of what was coming was the flash of lightning and the beating of hail against the windows. The wind howled, and I heard a fearful roaring noise. The people became frightened, and hurriedly gathered their wraps together. All were fearful of impending danger.

“Just at this moment I saw a round hole blown through the wall, immediately above one of the windows. The gas went out and then I saw another large round hole appear in the roof. Through this I saw the lightning play with awful grandeur. This natural light was all that relieved the gloom and darkness. I heard one of the trustees of the lodge call out to all the people to go out quickly and in a body. He cried out not to rush, as some one would be killed if they did. Then I knew no more until I became conscious, and found that I was partially imbedded in bricks and timbers. I felt blood running down my neck and became aware that I had been struck on the head by a brick or timber. I extricated myself, and by the flashes of lightning made my way over the terrible mass of debris and dead bodies toward the front. I saw a man making his way down the pile of bricks to the street, and I followed. When I reached the sidewalk I was aided to a neighboring store by a lodge trustee. I don’t know how he made his way out. I heard cries for help as I came out, but I had barely strength to move, and could not help the others.”

A thrilling experience was that of another member of the same lodge. His estimate of the attendance, larger than the foregoing, is yet materially exceeded by others. He says:

“The first intimations of danger we had were two distinct rockings of the building, about which time a dormer window in the lodge room was blown from its casings, and immediately after the plastering began to drop from the ceiling. A wild rush was made for the ante-room, which carried me with it, and I had just reached the door when

MAIN STREET, BETWEEN ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH, LOUISVILLE.

the entire floor gave way, and we were precipitated to the basement, blinded and almost suffocated by a cloud of dust, and crushed and jammed by falling timbers. In some way the doorframe fell with me and maintained an upright position when it stopped, and I was enabled to extricate myself from the debris and make an exit to the street through an adjoining house, whose doors I kicked in. Meanwhile, the shrieks and groans of those still imprisoned by the wreck formed a chorus that, in connection with the howling of the storm, made my very heart sick. I was, so far as hasty examination went, comparatively uninjured, and at once returned over the ruins with several men to the rear of the place and extinguished a fire that had begun to blaze fiercely. By this time the rain was falling in torrents, and it was difficult for those who had gathered from the neighborhood, or who had been as lucky as I was to escape with life, to tell where to begin the work of rescue.

“The vivid lightning flashes only gave momentary views of the position of the ruins, and blinded everybody. Among those whom I saw and recognized as having escaped from Jewel lodge I can name only the treasurer, who was covered with dust, drenched with rain and well-nigh distracted by the probable fate of her aged father, who had attended the lodge meeting with her and who was still in the ruins. The entire building collapsed in front and rear, and of the east and west side walls nothing was standing above the second story.

“So far as I could judge when I had succeeded in escaping, there were less than a dozen, all told, who got out unhurt; and the cries for help and groans that issued from the broken and twisted heap was proof that scores were still there, unable to escape.”

The Union Depot was utterly demolished. An officer of the Louisville Southern Road relates the story:

“Quite a crowd of people were present waiting for trains. Mr. Woodard, of the Monon Railroad, was near me, and I had been talking to him. The wind was blowing strong, and seemed to increase in power. We heard a dull moaning in the distance, and the glass in the windows of the depot was shattered, although the first puff was merely the advance guard of the tornado. The people became alarmed. One man started to rush into the ticket office, but the ticket-seller pushed him back. Mr. Woodard and I also started for the ticket office. Just at this moment the tornado, like a clap of thunder, struck the depot.

“The building gave way and tumbled in upon us. I was just at the door of the ticket office when it went down. I fell, and a man standing near me fell across me. A heavy girder fell on top of him. Mr. Woodard was only a few feet away. I never lost consciousness. I spoke to Mr. Woodard and he replied. We both thought we could get out alive if the depot did not catch fire. I knew that there had been stoves with fire burning in them in the depot before the tornado struck it, and I expected the flames to break out at every moment.

“I spoke to the man who was lying across me and told him that he must manage to squeeze from under the girder. I thought that if he was off me I could manage to get out. After many desperate efforts he managed to get from under the girder, but in doing so his bowels were torn so terribly that the doctors do not think he can recover. He was a brakeman, who had come here to be a witness in some case. I do not remember his name.

“After the brakeman got off me, I was able to use my strength. Then I got out, and so did Mr. Woodard. I was under the wreck just thirty-five minutes. I was slightly bruised in the arm and leg, but that amounts to nothing.”

UNION DEPOT, LOUISVILLE.

Though forty or fifty persons were in the depot at the time, only one, a restaurant boy, was killed; Twenty-one passenger coaches were more or less wrecked. On following days the impression of the ruins upon the beholder was peculiarly gloomy. Instead of the stir of life, the brilliancy of electric lights, the scream of whistles and the rumbling of trains, there was a scattered wreck, and comparative silence. A few chickens, liberated from their coop, crept at dusk to roost on a timber, and in subdued tones seemed to be discussing with each other the mournful situation.