TORNADOES WARD. 



141 



FAThC^ AND 

 BABY 



(May 27, 1896) destroyed property to the amount of $10,000,000 

 in IjSt. Louis alone. In some years the damage for the whole 

 United States falls to but a few hundred thousand dollars. 



Figure 1 illustrates the tragic fate of one family in a tornado 

 (May 30, 1879). x A house was moved entirely from its foundation 

 to the southeast, then broken to pieces and scattered along the 

 tornado track to the northeast for more than a mile. The members 

 of the household, consisting of father, mother, and four children, 

 ran outdoors as the storm came. They first turned northwest, but, 

 thinking that the tornado was coming toward them, they turned 

 toward the east. One by one they were caught up and carried by 

 the wind. The father and baby were carried 150 yards into a field 

 to the northeast, and found in the agonies of death. The mother 

 was carried eastward 75 yards, and dashed against a tree, around 

 which she was partially 

 twisted ; her skull was 

 crushed and her clothing- 

 was stripped from her 

 body. A girl was found 

 dead 50 yards northeast 

 of the house, in the 

 direct path of the storm. 

 A boy was blown into 

 a haystack 45 yards to 

 the northeast, and a 

 girl was found 80 yards 

 to the northeast lying 

 in the tornado track. 

 Neither of these two 

 children was seriously 

 injured. Disasters simi- 

 lar to this one come all too frequently in the American tornado 

 belt. 



Finley listed some 600 tornadoes, of which 40 were fatal to human 

 life, causing a loss of 466 lives and injuring 687 persons. 2 In the 

 case of the St. Louis tornado (May 27, 1896) the loss of life was 

 306. In fact, in this one storm the fatalities and the damage to 

 property were greater than in any other single tornado on record. 

 Prof. Mark W. Harrington, formerly chief of the United States 

 Weather Bureau, estimated that the chance that a tornado may, in 

 any year, cross the particular locality where any individual may 



1 J. P. Finley, " Report of the Tornadoes of May 29 and 30 in the States of Kansas, 

 Missouri, Nebraska, and Iowa." Professional Papers, United States Signal Service, No. iv, 

 (Washington, D. C, 1881.) 



2 J. P. Finley, "Report on the Character of Six Hundred Tornadoes," Professional 

 Papers, United States Signal Service, No. vii. (Washington D. C, 1884.) 



Fig. 1.— Tornado, May 30, 1879. From the Quarterly Journal 

 of the Royal Meteorological Society. 



