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."
A Chicagoan, who withheld his name, told of the scenes at Omaha when the
train stopped there. He said:
"I was just recovering from what I had seen on the train when we pulled
into Omaha with the injured. It was night then, but such a night. The
sky was lighted with a red glare, and the streets were filled with
people who acted as though they were mad. Frequently the cries of the
wounded, unloaded at the station, were drowned by terrific peals of
thunder."
It is difficult for any one who has not lived through a tornado to have
any conception of what such a storm can do. Tornadic force means
anything more than one hundred miles an hour. There have been instances
where tornadoes have shaved off the stone sides of buildings as if they
had been sliced away by a stonecutter. Forecaster Scarr, of New York,
said that the tornado that wrought destruction in Nebraska may have been
of the resistless kind that simply ground stone and brick to dust and
carried up its electrified funnel the remnants of every building it
struck. The tornado finally became almost like a mass of whirling steel,
revolving faster than the blades of the swiftest planer and cutting
everything to pieces in its course.
YUTAN A SUFFERER
The tornado first struck the little village of Yutan, southwest of
Omaha. Yutan was practically wiped off the map and its population of
four hundred left desolate. After the buildings had been razed the
wreckage caught fire. "The town is burning! We'll all be killed!" some
kept crying, and this added to the fears of the others. Many persons
were killed and many injured. Waterloo, a village of about equal size to
the northeast across the Platte River, suffered like damage. Wires were
snapped off in all directions, and it took many hours to gather and
circulate news of the disaster.
Leaving desolation behind it the tornado swept at a rate of possibly one
hundred and fifty miles an hour into Berlin. This little village had a
population of about two hundred. The storm killed seven and injured
thirty. The habitations were virtually wiped out. A church, an elevator
and part of the residence of State Senator Buck were all that remained
standing of what was a prosperous town.
THE TUMBLING HOUSES OF BENSON
On its way to Omaha the tornado struck Benson and Yutan. Benson is a
thriving town of over three thousand. Here property damage was great and
many persons were injured. As the houses began to tumble a little girl
dressed in white started from one of the houses and ran down the street
with her hands above her head. Just then the side of a house came
soaring through the air, and shooting suddenly downward it struck the
child and buried her beneath it. When the storm had passed, the injured
were lying all about the streets.
At Ralston, a suburb of Omaha, many were killed and much injury and
destruction left in the path of the tornado. Late in the afternoon a
copper-colored cloud was seen mounting toward the sky. The cloud grew
rapidly and was traveling at tremendous speed. It assumed the form of a
funnel and the air was filled with a curious, piercing noise. It swished
across the railroad track and swept on its way toward the little town.
Then the storm struck the town. Houses collapsed as though they were of
paper. The roofs went sailing away and the sides fell in. Passengers in
a passing train watched the destruction, and a cry of horror went up
from every one. It was an awful sight.
A farmer was standing on the doorstep when he noticed the funnel-shaped
cloud. He called his wife and four children, and they all sought refuge
in a cyclone cellar. Five minutes later their house went sailing away.
CURIOUS TRAGEDIES
Edward Mote, his wife and three children were sitting in their home
chatting when the tornado suddenly carried them and their home to Paio
Creek, one hundred yards away, and dropped them into the water. Mrs.
Mote was drowned.
Postmaster D. L. Ham, his daughter, Mrs. Kimball, and his grandchildren
were standing in the doorway of their home when the wind struck. Mrs.
Kimball and her two-year-old daughter Frances stepped outside the door,
which slammed shut. Their bodies were found among the debris. H. E. Said
and wife, bride and bridegroom of a month, were in the Ham house. Warned
of approaching death by Mr. Ham, they sought solace in each other's
arms. Thus they were found dead. Mr. Ham was slightly injured.
HOUSES TUMBLING ABOUT
There was a big threshing machine standing near one of the houses, and
when the cloud struck it shot straight up into the air and was carried
about forty rods. Houses were rolling and tumbling along the ground. A
box car was carried along by the terrific air current for a quarter of a
mile. When it split open six or seven men, who turned out to be part of
a repair gang, dropped out. Some lay very still, while others feebly
crawled about.
A dozen other towns in the section of Nebraska surrounding Omaha were
hard hit and many farming communities were destroyed.