Prayed for Mercy

PRAYED FOR MERCY

It was converted in those short twenty minutes into a city where lamentations and prayers for mercy were offered, even after the source of danger had gone. The work of rescue began. as soon as the inhabitants, stupefied by terror, realized that they might be of service to others. The rooming-houses and hotels being in a downtown district were visited by the rescuers first. Nothing but the sight of mangled bodies and groans from those who were pinned down by timbers could enforce upon those who had escaped a comprehension of the terrible.

Residents of the stricken city gathered in little knots on the street. They did not mind the drenching rain. Nothing except the wind, which left death in its path, possessed any terrors for them. They saw that the entire east approach to the Eads bridge had been carried away by the wind as if it had been so much tissue paper. On every side rains were to be seen. For a time chaos reigned.

The Court House and police headquarters bad been blown away. Officers knew not where to find their chief, and while vaguely conscious that they ought to do something were at a loss how to proceed. In the course of time, however, temporary police headquarters were established. Drays and wagons were pressed into service as ambulances, and the work of rescuing the dying and removing the dead began. Several persons were found whose bodies had been transfixed by the sharp ends of huge timbers. Others lay moaning and groaning under the weight of a ton of timbers. Every courier that arrived at police headquarters bad fresh tidings of calamity, until those who received the reports became inured to tales of terror and received them as quietly as though they had been commonplace annals of every-day happenings. With the storm came a darkness that added to the terror.

Residents of St. Louis, fearing for the safely of friends and relatives and of property besieged the watchman who had been stationed at the bridge with requests, to be allowed to cross. The passageway was filled with debris from the bridge overhead. The watchman had instructions to allow no one to pass. Two trains which had been blown over by the storm blocked the way of pedestrians. The burning buildings in East St. Louis cast a lurid glare over the rapidly rushing waters and the ruins of the town pictured in silhouette led many to believe the conflagration had destroyed the entire city. Those who did get over saw only a scene of wholesale destruction of life and property. East St. Louis and its ruins were one huge mausoleum, covering no one, knew how many dead.