Cincinnati, OH Storm Causes Death And Destruction, May 1902

SIX LIVES ARE LOST.

Furious Storm At Cincinnati And Its Suburbs.

LASTS ONLY HALF AN HOUR.

That Time Sufficient To Do Heavy Damage.

Waterspout On Kentucky Side Carries Everything Before It.

Cincinnati, O., May 20 -- Shortly after 1 o'clock today this locality was stricken by a terrific wind and rain storm, causing the loss of half a dozen lives and injuring many. The fury of the storm continued only a half hour, but in that time over a million dollars of damage was done in the business section of Cincinnati and as much more in other parts of the city and suburbs.
Prior to the unprescedented fall of rain dense clouds were seen to the south, and the city became as dark as at night. It was afterwards learned that there had been a terrific waterspout on the Lewisburg hills, in the southern suburbs of Covington, Ky., and it moved over the Kentucky suburbs into this city, passing up the Miami valley with damage reported as far as Dayton, O.
While storm damage is reported throughout Kentucky, the worst point seems to have been in the suburbs of Covington, where there was a waterspout. The water rolled down the hills in a wave twenty feet deep at places and was 100 yards wide. The frame house of EDWARD WOHRLEY was carried away for a distance of over four blocks and finally dashed to pieces in the Covington ball grounds. The house was occupied by four families. MRS. GEORGE FLACHNER and WILLIE WILSON, aged four years, were drowned, and the other occupants narrowly escaped.
Search for Other Victims.
Searching parties are still at work tonight at Willow Hollow at the foot of Lewisburg, where others are reported missing.
CLEM DAVIER, who was driving a team near Covington, was drowned, his wagon being overturned by the rush of water.
At the Cincinnati morgue there are the bodies of three victims. GEORGE BECKER, while driving a beer wagon, was struck by a telegraph pole and knocked from his wagon. He was pinioned to the ground and drowned.
FERDINAND RAPP, a peddler, was caught by the water while trying to get goods out of a cellar.
D. W. C. BELLEVILLE, a carpenter, was carried away with the roof of a building on which he was working, and killed.
Many are reported injured.
The damage to some of the business houses in Cincinnati runs as high as $25,000. Several small frame houses on Price Hill were demolished by a landslide, but all of the occupants escaped.
GUY M. GEST, a contractor, who is putting the telegraph and telephone wires in conduits, suffered great damage in the excavations he is making throughout the city. In one large manhole, sixteen feet deep, where MR. GEST is giving an underground exhibition to the national electric light association now in session here, several men narrowly escaped death. The water rushed into the large excavations and submerged the men, who were pulled out with much difficulty by their fellow workmen.
At Covington many outhouses and barns were swept away and a number of horses drowned.

The Nebraska State Journal Lincoln Nebraska 1902-05-21
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!