TORNADOES AND TALL BUILDINGS 



By JAMES HUNEKER, New York 



About twenty years ago there was a lively discussion in the 

 American press provoked by an article that had appeared in 

 a now defunct daily newspaper. The writer, evidently a 

 meteorological humorist, described New York in the throes 

 of a tornado visitation. With saffron realism the advent was 

 pictured of a live Western tornado, a " twister " of the Kansas 

 variety. Across the New Jersey meadows came this horrid 

 monster, dangling a smoky funnel like the trunk of an elephant. 

 The noise was indescribable, a cross between a thunderclap 

 and the booming of a million railway trains racing full tilt over 

 loose steel bars. Of course, the sky was green, livid, and lurid. 

 When, according to the lively fancy of the romancer, the 

 tornado struck the river, it dragged up the clouds in a watery 

 embrace — or was it windy ? — a wall of water. The tall Battery 

 buildings disappeared in a twinkling ; where the Post Office 

 once stood was a hole full of mud and debris, and naturally the 

 Brooklyn Bridge was racked to its foundations, its harp-strings 

 snapped, and when last seen was going seaward on the pinions 

 of the storm. What became later of the inky column we do not 

 remember. But the damage had been done. A doubt had been 

 insinuated in the minds of many godfearing citizens that per- 

 haps a whirlwind in New York city might play hob with its 

 skyscrapers. Finally, architectural authorities being invoked 

 the idea was pooh-poohed off the map. For instance the Singer 

 Building weighs 90,000 tons, rests on caissons and concrete. It 

 has been estimated that the wind pressure is 128,000 foot-tons. 

 To guard against the tendency to lift on the windward side a set 

 of big steel rods are run down into the concrete 50 feet, thus 

 anchoring the building to the foundation. This building is 49 

 stories high. It seems tornado-proof. 



But only to return at intervals. Every spring and summer 

 brings its crops of Western and Southern tornadoes. As a rule 

 they occur on the outskirts of cities or wreak their fury among 



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