The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 9, 1898, Page 19

19 "+ FREAK WORK OF THE STOCKTON CYCLONE. = Carried a Horse Two Hundred Feet. Denuded One Side of Hedge. Sunday k the outskirts of Stockton last > of the most remarkable storms that e ny other cyclone There is no record of In the recor of the Santa Bar! most terrific storm that a violent hurricane. A veritable K a few i in all kindling wood. The only casualties v That no human beings were killed seer How THe CYCLONE < NE LOOKED DESCRIBED By A SPECTATO to h turn in the air aching mo- It nd s of flyin d them, the fa und in one raged over the groves on the f the limbs and gathe: At t ed up the dust from med off cemetery it sees nd trimmed The shear den other side was -ertainly One | reely not aia ne tore up a section of a few telegraph poles, j into Ambrus ted iron bu at work and cyclone made building. But at pped for the alr out- h fly rays througk Stockton its cc a of farmin trees anc ed to lie in tricken men on their end had contented it 1 1ts and chickens r of the irc se was Injured, re snap Ities to h ¥ roof wi ing through sound like the screech the Ar e moved in appa some ubu aws n tows: ath w ¥ where it r alr delightfully Oaks 1 tru dozen sm al oI 1 the Stockton did n , except people in t feel th o kindling wood > 5 no one at home fury of the Along the cyclon of the strangest fr that any man ever s of the most gi almost unh of the eccentricity of the c P motion. | e dur- 1 ‘s left an | of stor t such fury weré trac penings and an saw the of Near the West vineyard stood an! enormous windmill, its wheel being ranchhand, ahout 75 feet above the ground. The » north of tc cyelone picked up the wheel, broké it from its fastenings and carried it about ) feet, depositing it uninjured against x barn. The tower on which it had been plaged showed no signs of having been even touched by the cyclone. man in the o t he riffed that he could not mov At the Broschi place there were three | LAl during the forenoon Jarge mail buildings and a dwelling hous: clouds piled und the horizon.' ail in a line just in_the storm’s path. ;xg;\ il : Graduall de, about 150 feet from them, | ew darker the clouds be- windmill. The cyclone in its| g7 a0 Jumblg togeth course first struck a _barn that was at| h e S of distant one end of the row of buildings. Then | e to have a it swept to the right and turned over shower,’ ~ the sald, as th a windmill. Instead of continuing on scanned the Then it was hos2 who happened | = to look in a northerly dircetion Saw 11‘2‘ funuel-shaped cloud. Several eye wlt-l t course it turned. describing a all circle, and came back, demolish- ing a chicken house, leaving the dwell- ing and a small shed uninjured. At ver ara occurred re is no proof that it was a cyclone. tou A Jumped a Wind Break. Carried a Windmill Two Hundred Fect. Turped Across lIts Tra ek: Crushed a House Flat. B s S o e ECCENTRIC D OF TH PATH™? ND| ND LEANING 1T REA) ISTANT BARN INJURED NS = rything the storm | were so badly damaged as to make ched was carrled away. | them unfit for use. few hundred feet further along its| These are only part of the queer an e the cyclone struck a windbreak | tics played by the cyclone. Almost trees with a collection of every hour for several days after the | chicken ( the inside. | occurrence something new turned up | Just as unbelievable as any previously | found. s and, small sheds on y it would be supposed that the would suffer as much as the build- Such was not the case. The| Of all the people who saw the cy lone jumped over the trees, went in- | clone and stood by helpless while it the i re and reduced the|raged, John Borsoi's experience was en I s to kindling wood, killing | the most thril . He is not ashamec all th s well as a dog and cat, | to s that he was almost frightenec and continued on its course leaving the | to death, and the effects of the shock windbreak uninjured | to his nervous system will not pass Just after leaving this place the|away for many days. cyclone’s path an almost | WVhen I first saw the black cloud bare field. Here it ¢ ed off the stub- | coming up,” said Mr. Borsol “I d e and weeds as If a had passed | Dot know what to make of it. You s lim th ! Thi i, gt t wit gro A was unfortunate enough to stand cycl ene riec dro swash of the cyclone seized them i 2FFICIa anding alone and stripped off all the 1d, and the 1 | I was not born in this country and I never heard of cyclon It then struck an old trec | | “All morning it had been so hot and | | r them. bs by pressing them down and piling m around the bottom of the trunk. | ¢lose that I almost fell sick. There | was no air in the house and T came s was one of the most grotesq \ts to be found along the cyclone's | OUt to sit on the woodpile and was h and it is impossible to conceive of | Watching the sky. T could see the city of the forces that caused | clouds moving every way, and was surprised they moved so fast. “While I was watching the sky I suddenly saw it begin to grow dark. all the bright, white clouds suddenly disappeared and the sky became misty. | Even while I was looking the sky got almost black. Then came a roll of thunder, and T thought we would have some rain. Then I saw a greenish light come and spread over the trees down e trunk stands up like a pole h its limbs nd leaves littering the und about it. horse belonging Simon Moore 1 the lone’s way. He was so badly fright- d and bruised that he hasn’t yet ) able to realize what struck him. st his hind legs were seized, then he to lifted bodily off the ground and | by the Calaveras d ower in the air s>veral times.| T must go int S over in the air st go into the house or T'll get kicked in all directions, but all to [wet,’ I sald to myself, Just as I started yelone carried him no purpose, for the cy I looked up and saw that blac - about 200 feet and then dropped him | jelshaped cloud. The top part(z(\'afflun down in a Leap. No bones were broken, | plack as ink, and the lower part was but the horse will not be able to work | tyrning round and round like light- for several weeks so badly bruised | ping. Now it bounded up in the air i is he. and then came down. At a vineyard close to the edge of “To say that I was frightened does Stockton several hundred empty | not describe it. I was simply stupe- fruit boxes were nicely piled up.|fied with fear, and stood rooted to the hese :d in a bunch spot. Perspiration broke out all over d high in the air. Aft me and I could not move if it had come on top of me and killed me. I simply looked and looked and heard the thunder roll and saw the lightning ttered them In all directions. ash from the top part of the cloud. spread all over a hundred-acre It seemed to me like an age, but arger portion of them |it could have been only a few minutes. i seversl hundred yarc pped to the ground, wk re the back and They L. FORECASTER HAMMOND'S EXPLANATION OF THE CYCLONE. HE causes which led to the great atmospheric disturbances near Stockton were of the usual kind that produce such phenomena in other parts of the country. On Saturday night the storm center was on the coast of Oregon and I sent a rain warning up to Stockton. There was a good deal of shifting of atmosphere and evidently great dif- ference in the temperature of the different strata. The electrical features that are the usual accompaniment of violent atmospheric disturbances are not so easy to explain, but the generally accepted theory is that in some manner a layer of cold air gets on top of the underlying layer of hot air. A mountain range in between the two wind currents couid cause this. The hot air naturally attempts to rise and finds a bole through the layer of cold air through which it rushes. This causes the rush and swirl of the funnel-shaped cloud. The moisture of the warm air coming in contact with the cold air causes the hail that is the usual accompaniment of these disturbances. While the hot air is rushing up the storm is traveling at its highest speed and the combination of all does the work. Tt would be a difficult matter to tell at just what points the storm of last Sunday gzenerated. But the points are all there and no doubt could be worked out to an accuracy. As usual it was the southeast quadrant of the storm center. . But why do people call these storms ‘‘gycloaes?” - They are “torna- dos.” The cyclone is the heavy storm of-long duration that travels in a circle, These short, terrible twisters that they have in Kansas and through the Mississippi Valley are tornados. The difference in the two words is very great and people should learn to use them properly. The storm at Stockton last Sunday was a tornado ar there is no particular reason why such disturbances should not be| plentiful here. It is largely luck and chance that there have been pone since the State has been inhabited by Americans. If the conditions\come about they will be Just as plentiful here as in as. / | I was fascinated, and s@w that blac! cloud come tearing right at me. Its bot- tom part was fllled with dust and | sticks and the limbs of trees. and it ’l‘t)éll'ctl and shrieked like several dif- ferent kinds of steam whistles. But I could not move. “Nearer and nearer I saw the cloud ome, and then with a swish it wa past, carrying along the wood pile on which I had been sitting only a fes moments before. As the end of th loud went past - was almost blinde: & NN RRNNNN ” % ISS NELLIE CLOSE, Cross nurse in St. Luke's Hos- pital, has just returned from accompanying a sick soldier back to the wilds of Tennessee, according to her own story. began to gather here in San Francisco St. Luke’s, together with the German and French hospitals and nearly all kindred establishments im the city, opened its doors to as many of the boys in blue as it could accommodate out- side of its regular patients. These “camp cases” came from nearly all parts of the country and were of all grades of refinement, education and personal charm. Ambng these beneficiaries of St Luke's was one young fellow—a boy of only twenty years—who after a severe and well-nigh fatal attack of pleuro- pneumonia exhibited no positive signs of return to health. The disease had run its course, leaving him but a shadow of his former self, but he seemed to have reached a stationary stage in his convalescence which was as 1idy to lead back to illness as for- ward to complete recovery. To add to the difficulty of his case the young sol- dier was a constant sufferer from acute nostalgia (homesickness). After a six weeks' stay in the hospital it was plainly seen by the attendant physicians that there was absolutely no hope of his recovery in this climate even if his longing for home had not been so overmastering as it was. It was absolutel: necessary that he should go back to his people, but how to send him there was the puzzle, since he needed care and attention that could be by no means given him by unskilled hands. In this dilemma Miss Close came to the front with an offer of her gratuitous services during the time necessary to accompany the boy home and return to her hospital work. The permission of the hospital au- thorities being secured Miss Close started promptly forth on her mission of mercy and has just returned to her regular duties. Her story of the trip is interesting from many points of view. “Through the kindness of the rail- road people,” she said, “I was furnished transportation to Jonesboro, the near- L est point Bt When the soldiers from near and far | k | with dust and felt a breath of alr as | | AKING A TENNESSEE SOLDIER WAY BACK HOME. Eventful experience of a Red Cross nurse, who took a sick private from a San Francisco hospital back to his folks in the Tenn3ssee Mountains. a Red [ home. | though I had to be in attendance upon and a very exciting time she had of it, | | WHERE THE CYCLONE JUMPED A \WINDBREAK IAND DEMOLISHED ALL THE STRUCTURES ON THE INSIDE cold as if it had just come from the north pole. Then torrents of rain anc several hailstones fell around me, the | wind moaned a bit and it was all over. “I could see the storm as it moved off, tearing down haystacks and up- setting windmills. The air was verv cold for some minutes and I went into the house to get warm. But I was more than cold—I was sick—and it took me several hours to recover from my fright with a cyclone’s tail.” nVRRN n"RRWN Sam stood the trip pretty well, day and snatched my which, together made it a him night and own rest as I could. with the oppressive heat, little hard for me. “It was wonderful the power that the Red Cro: on my sleeve had over all | whom we met. Every one from the | train boys up to the occupants of pri vate cars tried to help us along and | make the way pleasant for us. Noth- ing that could be done by any one was lacking to our comfort and Sam was the pet of the entire train the journey through. “We arrived in Jonesboro in the middle of the afternoun, and Sam, who had not thought of such things pre- viously, suddenly made up his mind that he must not return to his home empty handed, but must buy his mother a ‘dress pattern’ in one of the stores. No sooner were we started out on our shopping expedition than the news of our arrival was spread through the town and the store whichwe en- t-red was soon full of people Bushing and crowding with each other to see the ‘Red Cross woman’ and the soldier. Many came from other motives than curiosity, for they had relatives or friends in the Tennessee regiment and took 1t for granted that I was personal- ly acquainted with every one under Colonel Smith’s command and could give news of them at first hand. It was hard to disappoint them and see them go away in tears, but I tried to make as good a story out of the little that T knew of the regiment as I could and convince them that it was not care- lessness nor indifference on my part but sheer inability to attend to my hos- pital duties and learn all about the Tennessee boys as individuals which made me come without a special mes- sage for every one of them. “That following four hours and a half ride out to Haw Crossroads— Sam’s home—I shall never forget. We went in a surrey with two horses and a small darky driver, and started so | late that darkness overtook us before | we accomplished half the distance. The road, because of the heavy summer raing, was the worst I ever rode over. There were creeks to cross where the water came up within an inch or so of | the floor of the carriage, and the road was full of deep gullies and rocks washed down from the hills. Thefe was no moon, and I exvected to be overturned or drowned almost any minute, but at last we got into Sam’'s | | px Tail to-Blm‘s.’I‘em’unue ‘neighborhood,” that is, within six | age. ONE SIDE OF AROW OF TREES STRIPPED OFITS LIMBS..- miles or so of his home, and then I forgot my worries in the novelty of the welcome he recelved. It was nearly 9 o’clock by this time and every one in the ranch houses that we passed was in bed, but Sam halloed lustily at every door and out of it almost instantly would tumble one or more unkempt men, who would rush up to the wagon | with a ‘Howdy. Sam? and a volley of questions which Sam tried vainly to answer. “They were all tremendously glad to see him and they evinced it by forming themselves into an impromptu body guard and walking along with us. By the time we reached Sam’s home we had an escort of about forty men, many of them bareheaded and barefooted, as rough a looKing crowd as one could well imagine—though their only weap- ons were watermelons, with which, be- ing eager to do something to show their hospitable feelings, nearly every one had loaded himself in order to have a watermelon feast on our arrival at the end of our ride. “I found Sam’'s home to be a little whitewashed house of three rooms, with a log kitchen outside. In this abode were Sam’s father and mother, three married sons and their wive: two unmarried sons, three daughters, and seven children under four years of They were all wildly glad to see us and Sam’s meeting with his mother was worth the whole trip to me. “Sam held a regular reception until nearly midnight and the whole neigh- borhood turned out in his honor and sat around eating watermelon and listening to his stories of the wonders of San Francisco. The tales he told them were something dreadful to hear, for he— having spent most of his spare time in the Park and the Chutes before his ill- ness—talked mostly of the animals that he saw and fully convinced them that buffaloes and elks and bears and pea- cocks and monkeys and lions roved the streets at will here, and that our man- ners and customs are scmething simply astonishing. You must understand, of course, that Sam himself can neither read nor write, and that all his impres- sions are gained from what he sees and hears, and such impressions passed on to others become nothing short of as- tounding, especially, as in this - case, when the recipients are quite as igno- rant as he who gives the information “There were two beds apiece in two of the rooms and one bed in the other, and I was given the semi-privacy of this shared with a girl of nineteen who was just up from an attack of typhasid fever. I spread the sheets thoughtfully given me by the Red Cross over the hard straw mattress and retired, leav- ing Sam still telling his wonderful tales f San Francisco and St. Luke’s, where they gave him clean clothes every day. I stayed there . wee and Sam talked the whole time to admiring au- diences, the feminine portion of which solemnly dipped snuff while the mas- culine portion chewed tobacco. We lived on string beans, fried dry salt pork, watermelons and hot biscuits. Sam had cried about these same bis- cuits of his mother’s at the hospital and declared that they were the best things in the world. and he acted up to it after he got home, but I found them to be ‘beaten biscuits,” with which the beater was far too lenient. They were like baked paste, and T ab- solutely could not eat them at all. “Everybody was more than kind to me, and their kindness was accentu- ated by their utter poverty and ignor- ance. It was a poor white neighbor- hood,' and the one negro resident, Aunt Milly, felt herself far superior to them all. Not one scrap of -rinted matter ever comes to their houses, and their only news of the world is gained from some one like Sam, who has managed to get away for a time. It would be heart-breaking were they not so contented and happy among themselves. As it is free from outside influences, they have an: hon- each other which fis remarkable, and share each other’s joys and sorrows in a way which might be a lesson to many of u§ who think ourselves above them. “My journey home was rather ex- citing, as I went to a friend’s in Sa- vannah just in time to encounter a eyclone which struck that pretty little city just two hours after my arrival. The wind blew at the rate of seventy- five miles an hour and did $250,000 worth of damage to the rlace during the short time that it lasted, while it made me think longingly of San Fran- cisco, where the breeze is chronic in- stead of acute. “Paken altogether it was a hard trip, but it is one which I shall never regret having made. est affection for Jt 1 estimated that close upon 100,000 Eanotortes are manufactured every year Londs : %