USA > Iowa > Calhoun County > Pomeroy > The story of a storm, a history of the great tornado at Pomeroy, Calhoun County, Iowa, July 6, 1893 > Part 9
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17
"I passed the Good Templars' hall. It was filled with the wounded and dying. A policeman at the door kept out all who were not on the hospital staff, but my reporter's notebook gained an entrance for me. Here was pain and suffering ! Here was sorrow and death ! The large hall was closely crowded with cots, upon which were laid many wounded men, women and children, who were victims of the storm's terrible outburst. At one place was a little child, almost a baby, crying and moan- ing with pain. Near by the mother suffered in silent anguish, almost forgetting her own severe injuries in her anxiety for the welfare of her little one. There lay an aged man, pale and motionless upon his couch, the breath of life nearly gone from his nostrils. At another place a man in the prime of life was choking and gasping as the death pallor crept over his features, and the stifled sobs of the dear ones gathered around him touched the heart with unspeakable pity. In and out among the rows of couches moved the noble physicians and nurses, who vol- untarily gave so much of their time to the work of relief.
124
STORY OF A STORM.
"Sick at heart, I passed into the outer air, and going across the street entered the low frame building that was doing unaccustomed service as a morgue. Here were laid upon the rough planks and tables that were the only furniture of the place, the remains of those who had lost their lives in the terrible night preceding, the corpses being gathered there for the hasty preparations for burial. I counted seventeen bodies in the hands of the men in charge, whose rough but kindly hands attended as best they could in that place devoid of convenience, to the dressing of the dead for their last resting place. Nearly thirty bodies were prepared for the cemetery in this place, the great extent of the disaster making it impossible to secure better accommodations for the purpose.
"A walk over the ruined district revealed sights so astonishing as to be almost past belief. The awful sud- denness of the blow was apparent at every glance over the town, and the realization of what these acres of wrecked homes meant to the people of Pomeroy inspired in every heart such a feeling of pity and sympathy that the simple telling of the story to the people of our state evoked the grand response that crystallized in the systematic relief work that has since been car- ried on.
"But why should I undertake to describe these scenes further ? Many of greater eloquence than myself have given the story to the world in vivid language. I can only say that no picture of the destruction visited upon that little city has overestimated its terrible force, and that no tongue or pen can convey to human mind a full realization of the agony of that night of horror, or a full understanding of the deep sorrow that came into so many happy homes in the hour of desolation."
125
STORY OF A STORM.
A CLERGYMAN'S VIEWS.
Following is a paper read by Rev. W. T. McDonald, pastor of the M. E. church at Pomeroy, at a conference of his church held soon after the great storm :
" CYCLONES AND TORNADOES.
" Cyclones and tornadoes are both defined in the dic- tionary as whirling or rotary winds or hurricanes. The only difference that might be implied in the definition is that the former are likely to occur within or near the tropics, while the tornado's habitat may be the temperate zone.
"It might be thought, in this century of advanced science, that the real nature of cyclones and tornadoes would be definitely settled ; and any individual, not in one of these storms, might think that, in this year, we have had opportunity enough to study and define the nature and cause of such fearful disturbances ; but any- one who has passed through such a storm knows the impossibility of calmly studying the phenomena under the circumstances, and in the short space of time the phe- nomena lasts-a few seconds at most. Whatever can be done, in adding to the knowledge of cyclones and tor- nadoes, must be done in the period when the mind find its equilibrium, and is able to view events in a normal con- dition of atmosphere.
" The cyclone, or tornado rather, of July 6, 1893, was the most terrible, in its results, that ever made havoc on the fair plains of Iowa. Its pathway, for a distance of fifty miles, was more sickening and devastating than an army on its march, in the madness of war. Crops were laid waste, the beautiful groves growing up over the prairies were broken and peeled as if the fires of war had been lighted among their branches. The loved homes, with all their
I26
STORY OF A STORM.
precious treasures, were strewn, in horrible wreckage, over miles of country, and human life, so sacred, was ruthlessly dashed, in the wild whirl, until life was turned to death ; or worse, into the sickening, horrible inadness of pain. No sight on the field of battle could be worse than the scene of desolation in Pomeroy on that fatal 6th of July, where, amid the wreckage, in pelting rain and hail, lay the unsheltered dying and dead. Standing in the center of the storm, even after its fury had passed, with the elements contending and warring around us, we could hear, on every hand, the cry for help, or the long- drawn sigh and moan of the dying ; and, constantly, in our search for the wounded, we would see, here and there, some lying still in death's embrace. Now, in the quiet and rest after the storm, with the effects still vividly before us, we might find something of the cause of these effects, and the nature of such a storin as laid waste our beautiful town.
" First, let us notice that it is now generally accepted that all storms have a cyclonic or rotary motion around a depressed center ; that, while the atmosphere presses in, to fill up a vacuum, caused by the rarefaction and ascen- sion of the heated atmosphere, at a given place, thie globular surface of the earth and the rotary motion com- bined, turns all motion of the winds into a more or less rotary motion toward the center of depression ; but, in ordinary storms, this depressed center generally covers a large area, while in a tornado the depressed center is con- centrated and contracted into the smallest space, probably because of electrical disturbances, which concentrate the area of rarefaction into a contracted point and also increase the process of rarefaction ; for it has been noticed that there are 110 tornadoes without very large electrical disturbances in the atmosphere ; because of this fact, it
I27
STORY OF A STORM.
has been considered by many that the devastating power in the tornado is electricity, but there is no proof of this in Pomeroy. Still, from the fact of the relation of elec- trical disturbances of tornadoes, we may find something of the cause of tornadoes. It has been generally accepted that an electrical storm is the result of two contrary cur- rents of atmosphere of different temperature meeting, which causes an electric spark. Then follows the thun- der, the sound of the atmosphere filling up the vacuum thus made by the electric spark ; this creates a disturbance in the atmosphere, which generally brings wind and rain, but not a cyclone; but if these currents of the atmos- phere are coming in the same direction, or in such a direc- tion as they can unite their forces, we are then likely to have' a cyclonic storm with a concentrated center and increased velocity, because of the electric disturbance and quick rarefaction of the atmosphere. The strength of the warmer or colder currents also decides the direction of movement of the storm; also, the peculiar form the storm will take, whether funnel shaped, and the motion in the storm be that its axis is horizontal to the earth's surface or perpendicular ; thus, if two currents are coming, say from the northeast and southeast, which- ever of the two is the stronger current, will decide whether the core of the storm shall move in a northerly or south- erly direction toward the east, and if the currents are an upper and under current moving nearly in the same direc- tion, then the direction of the storm shall be toward the direction of the stronger, and the movement of the cyclone will have its axis perpendicular to the earth's surface. Our cyclonic storms have generally been from southwest to northeast, but this storm had more of the direction from northwest to southeast, and it is strange that the three most terrible storms of Iowa have been in
I28
STORY OF A STORM.
this direction, and it is possible the crooked course of the storm may be accounted for by the accretion to the main storin, at different points, of the added force of either of these two currents. Thus we have some theory for the cause of a cyclone, its direction, and, also, its peculiar circular motion, either vertical, on its axis, to the earth's surface, or horizontal, or both combined.
"Now, how do the facts of July 6 corroborate this hypothesis ? Everyone in Pomeroy was conscious of great electrical oppression, so that there was a general expectation of a thunderstorm that evening, and some wise old prophet predicted in the noon hour a tornado that night. This extra electrical heat was, no doubt, converting, and that rapidly, our atmosphere into rarer and lighter, which was quickly ascending and passing away, and other currents, of greater or less magnitude, were rushing in to fill up the vacuum thus caused. These currents were, no doubt, of different tempera- tures, and thus coming in contact freed the electricity and added extra force to the combination and gave unity and velocity to the concentrated rotary movement, and it was quite noticeable that all winds and currents in the neighborhood of the storm veered toward that center, in the area which the storm passed over before it reached a given point. The wind was easterly and after the storm passed over the wind was westerly.
"Another phenomenon was perfectly noticeable in Pomeroy. It was not in the progress of the storm or rate of progress that lay the terrific power of destruc- tion in the storm, for the storm itself was moving at a rate of little over twenty miles per hour; touching south of Aurelia at 4:50 P.M. and striking Pomeroy, a dis- tance of forty miles, just two hours later, at 6:50. In an ordinary storm the rate of progress is the measure
COOK SHANTY AT REAR OF OPERA HOUSE.
From Copyright Photo by Garrison, Ft. Dodge.
METHODIST CHURCH RUINS.
129
STORY OF A STORM.
of the power, but not in a tornado. The whole power in a tornado lies in two things : First, the rotary motion in the storm combined with the disturbed equilibrium of the pressure of the atmosphere. The normal pressure of the atmosphere is about fifteen pounds to every square inch, and it is upon this basis all our buildings are erected. If this pressure, or any part of it, is removed, the whole equilibrium is removed and the building is liable to burst asunder because of the increased pressure inside, in comparison with the outside. That this was true of this storm the facts prove, as all the windows, except those struck with some flying substance, were drawn outward ; and in many cases the house itself was just drawn asunder and left. In one house, which was not destroyed, the gable end toward the storm was drawn outward from the joist six inches. Then, we can also see how the force of an ordinary rotary motion should be increased from ten to one hundred fold by this disturbed atmospheric pressure ; how some houses could be lifted whole almost, wheeled round and round and then dropped, without any great injury, upside down ; and how horses could be lifted and carried over the tops of trees and fall without being seriously hurt, which could not take place in an atmosphere of ordinary pressure. Nearly everyone was conscious of this changed atmospheric pressure, as if we had suddenly mounted into an altitude of many thou- sand feet ; and houses seemed like feather weights balanc- ing in the air. It was the combination of the rotary power in the storm and this disturbed atmospheric pres- sure, that constituted the terrific power in the storm, and not the rate of progress. Then, again, it was very evi- dent that, while there was one main core or center to the storm, there were many cores that were, evidently, thrown off, probably by centrifugal force, from the central core,
9
I30
STORY OF A STORM.
and that these, like great forked tongues of destruction, swept through different parts of the town. Only on this hypothesis, can we understand how many houses, within the radius of the storm, but outside the main center, were left standing though badly wrecked. It is quite possible that, between these different tongues of cyclonic storm, there was more or less of a calm belt. In one place one house was left in the middle of a block while every house on either side was completely destroyed. In another block the houses toward the main storm were left and every house in the alley behind those houses, farther from the storm center, were leveled ; thus proving different cores arising from the central core, but held from getting · far away by the attraction of the storm center. There is no need of further proof of the rotary inotion of the storm, as the wreckage everywhere proves it.
"The simple conclusion of the whole matter is, that a cyclone or tornado is a storm with a concentrated and contracted center, caused by the uniting of two currents of different temperature while rushing in to fill up a vacuum created by extreme rarefaction of the atmosphere at certain centers, which results in intense electrical storms. They, in turn, intensifying the rarefaction and giving a more complete circular motion to the united currents, and moving in a direction in proportion to the strength of either current as they unite. Then, in its course of travel, this center receives additions of either kind of current, adding and intensifying the electrical dis- plays, and the additional force moving the center out of a perfectly straight line. Then it may also be accepted that the terrific power in the storm is the result of dis- turbed atmospheric pressure and the rotary motion of the storm,"
I31
STORY OF A STORM.
CAUSE OF TORNADOES.
The editor of the Minneapolis Tribune has solved the problem of the tornado phenomena to his own entire satis- faction, although it is somewhat at variance with the opinions of other meteorological scientists. The Tribune man, in an article on the " Cause of Tornadoes," says :
"From the gulf of Mexico to the North Pole and from the lakes to the Rocky mountains is a vast extent of coun- try crossed by no mountain chains to intercept or retard the velocity of air currents.
"The extent of this country is equaled by none 011 earth. Cold air being heavier to the square inch than warm air, the cold air, when coming in contact with a warm current from the south, always predominates, forc- ing the warm air into the upper currents.
" The cause of cyclones is the meeting of a head wind from the north with a head wind from the south. They meet like two vast armies of men.
"The pressure at the point of meeting is so great that the air, by compression, becomes heavier to the square inch than wood or the human body, hence either one will float in the same manner that wood will float in water - it floats because it is lighter to the square inch than water.
" Place water in an ordinary wash bowl and remove the plug, and it will be observed that in passing out the water forms a circular reaction. Air being a liquid does the same in passing either upward or downward, hence the funnel-shaped spout of the cyclone center.
"When two immense bodies of air coming from opposite directions meet, the only egress is upward and sideways, and in passing upward it forms the funnel the same as water passing out of a wash bowl downward.
I32
STORY OF A STORM.
" The theory that a cyclone forms a vacuum is absurd. Withdraw air from a glass jar with an air pump and a feather within the vacuum formed will drop with the same velocity as lead, or, on the other hand, you can compress air until it is heavier to the square inch than wood, in which case wood will float in the air.
"The lifting power of a cyclone is caused first by the compression or density of the air, and second by its velocity. Combining the power of density with that of velocity, which occurs at the center or funnel, 110 power can resist it. The feeling of suffocation or difficulty in breathing when near the track of a cyclone is caused from the compression of air."
DOCTOR TOWNSEND TELLS OF THE STORM.
One of the medical men inost prominent in the work of rebuilding the shattered bodies of the wounded in Pomeroy was Dr. D. J. Townsend, of Lohrville. He was among the first on the ground from outside towns, and his valued services were freely given as long as they were needed, or until the worst was over and the patients were removed to Sioux City hospitals. The account of his experiences during this time is not without interest. He says :
" On the evening of July 6, 1893, on my way to New- ell on business, our train arrived at Jolley at about 6:20 P.M., and was detained there some twenty minutes by one of the most terrific thunderstorms I ever witnessed. The thunder was like the booming of a thousand cannon, and the lightning was incessant. When within three miles of Fonda, we noted that the telegraph and telephone wires had been blown down, and a farmhouse west of the rail- road was in flames. On our arrival at Fonda all was excitement, and we learned that what we had considered
133
STORY OF A STORM.
only a terrific thunderstorm was in reality a tornado, and that many farmhouses and barns in the vicinity of Fonda were wrecked and an, at that time, unknown number of human beings killed and injured. A gentleman named Eaton came to the train and informed me that he wanted me to visit some people who were injured, about one and a half miles southwest of the town. He had no convey- ance, but gave me his horse and he, acting as guide, ran ahead to the farmhouse where parties were to bring the injured. On our arrival there we were informed that the victims of the storm had been taken to town by a different route, and that they all were dead. I returned to town, and, while on the street listening to the report of a party who had been out to the storm-stricken district in the vicin- ity of Fonda, someone came up the street giving out the information that the town of Pomeroy had been entirely blown away, and that they wanted all the help they could get to care for the wounded at that place. I went to the depot, where the relief train was in waiting, and offered my services, and, as I had nothing with me but a small pocket case, Doctor Patterson, of Fonda, kindly gave me his operating case, saying that he would be down in the morning, the injured in the vicinity of his own town requiring his services during that night.
" We arrived at Pomeroy at about II o'clock. It was raining and the sky was still covered with heavy black clouds, and the darkness of the night was relieved -only by an occasional flash of lightning and the glimmer of the lanterns of the searching parties, who, Samaritan-like, were doing everything in their power for the afflicted, whose groans could be heard on every hand. Someone, I know not who, flashed a lantern in my face as I stepped from the train, saying that I was wanted at Dangerfield's at once, where Mrs. J. A. Davy lay severely injured.
I34
STORY OF A STORM.
Dr. W. S. Adams, a dentist of Fonda, who had come down on the train with me and said that he wanted to assist·me during the night, went with me to Dangerfield's where we found Mrs. Davy suffering from a severe scalp wound extending from the inner corner of the left eye upward across the forehead and back to a point near the top of the head and above the left ear. The left ear was cut through and almost severed from the head, and there was a small puncture through the lower lip. Her body was bruised and black and blue. Her clothing was thor- oughly saturated with water and covered with mud. The lacerated wound on her head was filled with sand, grass and leaves, which were literally ground into the flesh, so that it was impossible to wash or cleanse the wound of foreign matter except as we pared or cut the shreds of flesh away with scissors or knife. After closing the wound as best we could and stitching the ear as nearly to its nat- ural form and position as was possible, a couple of ladies assisted in giving her a hot whisky bath, and she was wrapped in a dry woolen blanket and given a quieting potion. This done, I went to the Richards hotel, falling in on the way with Dr. H. G. Ristine, of Fort Dodge, and Doctor Young, of Manson. At the hotel we found the waiting, baggage and dining-rooms filled with the wounded. I do not know the number of the wounded at the hotel at 2 o'clock that night, but think there were thirty-two at one time. They were lying on the sample tables, on cots and on the floor, in wet quilts or blankets, just as they had been brought in from the wreck. During the remainder of that night we did what we could in a general way to alleviate the suffering. Until 6 o'clock in the morning there was no system or organization to the work, everyone doing any work that came in his way and doing what at the time was the best he could do
I35
STORY OF A STORM.
under the circumstances. Between 6 and 7 o'clock Doctor Young and myself began to systematize matters, by establishing a morgue on the west side of the street, opposite the opera house, and having the dead placed there. A meeting was called at the Pomeroy State Bank at 7 o'clock, and all physicians on the ground were requested to be there to assist in organization. Dr. H. G. Ristine was elected chairman, and, if my memory serves me right, Dr. C. H. Churchill, of Fort Dodge, secretary. All physicians present were requested to register, that they might be assigned work. Dr. D. W. Edgar and myself were placed in charge of the Richards Hotel, where we found twenty-two patients needing the atten- tion of the surgeon. Several hospitals were established at different places, but we were kept so busy attending to our own charges that we had no opportunity of know- ing what was being done at other places. At 8 o'clock we had improvised an operating table by placing a blanket over a dining table. With our instruments, sponges and dressings on another table, each patient was brought in and his or her wounds examined and hurriedly dressed, and they were assigned to beds. And right here let me state that, while there have been some very severe criticisms of the work done by surgeons, made by the laity and by a few very pretentious surgeons who are hardly worthy of the title, the final results, with but few exceptions, showed the wisdom and sound judgment of the surgeon. The wounds were of a class that are not met with in any other calamity than the tornado-the tissues being bruised, punctured, incised and lacerated, with the addition of having foreign matter of every con- ceivable kind literally ground into the flesh. Splinters of wood were driven into the flesh and broken off in such a manner that oftentimes - I care not how proficient the
I36
STORY OF A STORM.
surgeon - they would escape his notice until the subse- quent inflammation and discharge of pus gave evidence of the presence of foreign bodies. Inflammation and the patient's complaining of pain in a certain region did not always justify exploratory incisions, as many were liter- ally contused from one end of their bodies to the other. The dirt and sand was plastered onto the skin in such manner that it was extremely difficult to remove it, and, in many cases, it was necessary to remove the hair in order to get the patient clean. Many scalp wounds that had at first been overlooked were found on removing the hair from the patient's head. And now, as I look back and realize the conditions we were placed under and the disadvantages under which we worked during the first · thirty-six hours following the storm, the more I think over the matter the less I feel like criticising the work of others or myself. It was a condition which very few of us, at most, had ever experienced before, and one which called for all the tact and skill known to the medical fraternity. And I am fully satisfied that every medical man there did, not what he would have done in private practice, with all the necessary conveniences at hand for caring for his patient, but what he, under the existing circumstances, considered the best for all parties con- cerned.
"By noon of the 7th Doctor Edgar and myself had all the patients assigned to us in comfortable beds, with one or more nurses to each patient, washing and changing their clothing and providing them with suitable nourish- ment, for, up to this time, many had had nothing in the form of food since the storm. The afternoon was spent in dressing wounds and prescribing for our patients. Doctor Stephens, of Storm Lake; Charles Whitney, of Fonda, and one or two other physicians whose names I
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.