The sky towards the southwest had grown gray again, and the terrible, black mass blotted out the northeastern horizon. Free to members; $5 for nonmembers.

In October 1918, word of the flu's growing presence in Minnesota began appearing on the front page of the Minneapolis Morning Tribune, below the news from the battlefields of Europe. At 4:00 p.m., a tornado of approximately F4 intensity cut through the heart of Sauk Rapids. Sauk Rapids has also suffered badly. Simultaneously came another fierce, sudden burst of rain-laden wind. Some found the bodies of their wives and children already extricated from the wreck. Cutler and Webb’s brewery is completely demolished.

Business men rushing to their homes, found in their stead masses of ruins. Block after block was desolated. Carried around the globe by massive troop movements at the end of World War I, "Spanish influenza" infected nearly half the world's population and killed more than 20 million people. It destroyed much of the town of Sauk Rapids and killed 72 people along its path. But there was not much time to study it. Cloud, and Rice, Minnesota on April 14, 1886.

Minnesota's location in the Upper Midwest allows it to experience some of the widest variety of weather in the United States, with each of the four seasons having its own distinct characteristics. Others came in time to help them out, and save their lives. It was some time before any organized system of working on the ruins could be arranged. Suddenly a cry arose, and people rushed from door to door. Last night a severe thunderstorm passed over us, and during the forenoon there were frequent showers with occasional flashes of lightning and the noise of distant thunder. As nearly as it can be ascertained now the number of dead in the two places – for Sauk Rapids has suffered at least as badly as St. Fiercer and fiercer it blew. Listen to the audio pronunciation of Sauk Rapids Tornado of 1886 on pronouncekiwi. Others only in time to help to lift out their corpses. More than 70 people were killed, and Sauk Rapids was all but blown off the map. The brick house of John Swartz is merely a chaotic pile – close beside it a frame house sands unroofed, but the walls still standing.The path of the cyclone seems to have been about 600 feet wide – cut as clean as a swathe in a hay field. Go Suddenly the sky toward the southwest deepened from dark to absolute black. It is impossible yet to say entirely how terrible it is.The morning was stormy. Sign in to disable ALL ads.

In another place your correspondent saw a girl carried away raving and apparently hopelessly insane as the moving of a timber disclosed her mother’s face – pale, save for the blood which had flowed from the blow that had killed her. Above the wind one could hear the crash of houses, the breaking of timbers and the shock of falling walls. One every side lay piles of ruins, where there had lately been comfortable, happy homes.

Thence it broadened upwards until the top of the funnel – or inverted pyramid – covered half the sky. Minneapolis Tribune copy editors of 1886 faced a challenge beyond anything we encounter in today’s newsrooms. It is Minnesota s… The air was close and sultry; but still no one seemed to fear anything more than an ordinarily severe thunderstorm.Your correspondent was standing with a knot of men in the shelter of a doorway looking at the blackening sky. Other tornadoes on this day occurred in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Texas suggesting the possibility of a large outbreak. The area near Lake Superior in the Minnesota Arrowhead region experiences weather unique from the rest of the state. As the storm moved across the Mississippi River, it temporarily sucked the river dry. Cloud, and Rice, Minnesota, on April 14, 1886.It destroyed much of the town of Sauk Rapids and killed 72 people along its path. The tornado that hit St. But up on the roof of the Treasure Masters building, 605 Fourth Av. Overhead there is a continual rumble of distant thunder, and vivid flashes of lightning ever and again throw the desolate scene into awful relief. My favorite is the writer’s habit of saying a scene is impossible or “too piteous” to describe — and then describing it in great detail. It is Minnesota's deadliest tornado on record. I'm reposting in connection with a presentation I'm giving at 9 a.m. Wednesday at the Stearns County Historical Society in St. The mayor and city officials worked well, and the members of the fire department. As fast as possible I made my way towards the northwest part of the city, which is chieflyEverybody else (those who were not still hiding, terror stricken, in cellars and corners of their houses) rushed in the same direction. Let’s give it up for the anonymous craftsman who managed to write 13 dramatic and informative subheds for the story below.

Cloud, April 14 – This place was today the scene of the most terrible calamity that has ever visited the Northwest. On the Köppen climate classification, much of the southern third of Minnesota—roughly from the Twin Cities region southward—falls in the hot summer zone ( How did homebound children get their fix of Dick Tracy and Little Orphan Annie during a polio outbreak?