540 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE' 



together in the northwest corner. Suddenly a section of the roof dropped 

 over them, one edge resting on the foundation wall, and at the same time 

 the rest of the basement was filled with wreckage and their section of roof 

 was piled high with it. But for the lucky falling of that piece of roof all 

 would have been killed. 



Evidently the safe cellar is one located far enough away from buildings 

 to be reasonably safe from falling wreckage and having a sod roof. 

 Some reported tornado freaks: 



Mr. Smith, fishing from a boat on the Cedar River near Nashua, was 

 thrown from the boat. He clung to some bushes and was whipped about 

 by the wind until his arms were nearly torn from his shoulders, but saved 

 his life. The boat was broken up. 



A family caught in a plowed field lay the storm out in furrows. There 

 was a dog with them. As the cloud approached, the dog was seen to be 

 desperately trying to dig himself into the ground. When the cloud was 

 over them the suction was so great that the people had all they could do 

 to stay in the furrows and did not see what happened to tlie dog. After the 

 storm he was gone. The next day he limped into the farmyard, footsore and 

 exhausted; much of his hair was gone and the remnant twisted or on end. 

 Those people think that the dog was sucked up into the cloud and dropped 

 a long way from home. 



That this explanation of the dog's appearance and long absence is not 

 improbable is evidenced by the mud deposited on buildings and other ob- 

 jects struck by the storm. This mud had been picked up from wet plowed 

 land and carried along, possibly many miles. Also, along the path of the 

 storm dead chickens were found, their bodies crushed flat and entrails pro- 

 truding. It is claimed that a strong man could not throw a full-grown hen 

 against the ground hard enough to produce that result. Apparently the 

 storm picked them up and then threw them down with great force. 



A large silo at Pearl Rock had its staves pushed in, but not broken. The 

 roof was merely pushed partly off. The silo had a small quantity of en- 

 silage in it. The staves were raised off the bottom boards some 10 to 18 

 inches. There are the usual number of rod-iron hoops on the silo. None of 

 these broke. 



The Cedar Valley Electric Co. has a power circuit of large copper wire 

 on poles along the road through Nashua and Pearl Rock. In places the 

 poles were torn out of the ground, the wire pulled from the poles and 

 twisted into every possible shape, whole spans of it being compressed into 

 two or three-foot lengths. The company estimated their loss in material 

 to be $6,000. None of the recovered wire can be used again and much of 

 it has not yet been located. 



TORNADO OF MAY 9, 1918, AT ELDRIDGE, IOWA. 



By Julius M. Sherrier, Meteoroiogist. 



(Dated: Weather Bureau, Davenport, Iowa, May 13, 1918) 

 At 6:00 p. m. May 9, 1918, normal central time, when a cyclone of 

 marked intensity was central near Dubuque, a highly destructive tornado 

 appeared about 3% miles southwest of Eldridge, Scott County, Iowa, and 

 moved northeastward through the northern portion of the town, disap- 

 pearing at a point about four miles to the northeastward of that place. 



Frequent thundershowers had occurred at Davenport during the day, 

 with hail from 5:10 p. m. to 5:25 p. m., but nothing unusual in the cumulo- 

 nimbus cloud formations was at any time observed at the Weather Bureau 

 office, nipe miles to the southward of the tornado's track. The appear- 



