Macon County News Items - Weather News Decatur Daily Republican (Decatur, Illinois) May 19 1884 The Roaring Cyclone It Struck Decatur Sunday Afternoon and Caused a Big Scare Full Details of the Damage Done - Antics of the Blow It has long been the notion of many Decatur people that our fair city could not be assailed by a terrific cyclone, such as has caused loss of life and laid waste many unhappy towns in various parts of the country during the past few years. The fact that Decature got a touch of a howling cyclone of the regulation funnel shape, proves that we are not exempt. It came Sunday afternoon at a few minutes past 3 o'clock, in the midst of dense darkness and driving, whirling fall of rain. Parties who were watching the gathering storm, and had the nerve to stand before the forked lightning and heavy crashes of thunder, heard the roaring noise which always precedes a cyclone, and they describe the demon of destruction as a large funnel-shaped affair, bounding and whirling 200 feet in the air as it passed quickly over the city. It struck the town at the end of West Decatur street at the Joe Foster place and continued its rapid flight northeaterly to the corner of Wood and Union Streets, when it veered to the east and went on a straight line to the corner of Wood and Water streets, half a block south of the Republican office; then dashing slightly north it passed onward over the corner of Power's lot and over the alley between Wood and East Main streets to Priest & Co.'s mill, over the Midland depot to Cassell's hill. Then bounding upward it went on its whizzing course to the block in the fifth ward west of the new school house shook up a few houses in the rolling mill addition, and bade the city goo-bye, traveling eastward through the country at a terrific rate of speed. The time occupied in its passage over the city was less than four minutes, but that limited period seemed an age to the scores of people who knew of its coming and heard its frightful roar. The excitement among those living on the route of the cyclone was at a high pitch, and bordered on terror among the families, many of whom took to cellars for safety. Luckily, there was no loss of life, ans so far as can be learned no one was injured; but there were at least two narow escapes. Frank Cassell, engineer at the Republican office, resides at No. 1104 E. Prairie street. His wife went to the coal shed, at the rear of the lot, just before the storm came, and rather than get we she concluded to remain in the shed until the rain ceased falling. The shed is nine feet wide and eighteen feet long but has no floor. Mrs. Cassell heard the roar of the cyclone, and held fast to the closed door. In less than a second the shed was lifted bodily from its foundation and whiled from over the head of the frightened woman and landed in an adjoining lot, leaving Mrs. Cassell standing alone among the coal in a dazed condition, but without receiving the slightest injury. Frank, who witnessed the flight of the shed from a rear window of the dwelling, hurried out in the storm and assisted his wife to shelter. HOME ©2008 Genealogy Trails