A DESTRUCTIVE CYCLONE

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 247, 15 January 1889, Page 2

A DESTRUCTIVE CYCLONE

A TOWN DEVASTATED, FIFTY PERSONS KILLED—THOUSANDS INJURED. INCREDIBLE AMOUNT OF DAMAGE DONE. Washington, Jan. 11. A cyclone has devastated Reading, in Pennsylvania, Fifty people have been killed. It struck and destroyed a silk mill in which 250 people were at work. Only part of them escaped. Jan. 12. The damage done to the Niagara suspension bridge by the cyclone is estimated at half a million dollars. Fourteen bodies were recovered from one building in Pittsburg. The damage to the Reading railway amounts to 80,000 dollars. One hundred persons were recovered alive, but more or less injured, from the ruins of the silk mill destroyed at Reading. It is feared a steamer conveying naval officers from San Francisco to Moro Island will have been caught in the gale. Further particulars show that the tornado took an easterly path, covering a track only two hundred feet in width, through the States of Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. Besides those killed many thousands of people were injured. The Reading railway station was razed to the ground and set on fire. Telegraph communication was interrupted in all directions. Snow and rain followed the cyclone. Threegasometere in Brooklyn exploded, and threw the city into partial darkness. Damage was done to the extent of half-a-million dollars. The explosion is supposed to be due to electrical disturbance consequent on the tornado. Jan. 13. It is estimated that the damage dona at Niagara by the recent tornado will amount to one million dollars.