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BATTLE OF THE WINDSH. D. Sexton, the wealthy real estate owner, vice-President of the East St. Louis Electric Railway, and director in the Workingman's Bank, had a narrow escape in the storm, and gives a graphic account of "The Battle of the Winds it as be terms it. Mr. Sexton, with his stenographer, Miss Rose Taylor, Cashier Isch of the Workingman's Bank and several others were sitting in his office on Broadway when the skirmish line of the infuriated elements hove in sight. They started to go home, but saw that they would be overtaken on the way and concluded to wait awhile. For a time they tried to hold the front door shut, but the glass in the broad window crashed in and stampeded them. They dodged under tables and desks, and Mr. Sexton says that above the roar of the winds he could hear some very audible and fervent prayers. A telephone pole broke just in front of the office, and was shot straight as an arrow against the wall, knocking a bole in it, and added to this the terror-stricken occupants could hear the roof crackling and falling above them. They dared not venture out, so lay prone upon the floor, expecting the worst, but when the storm bad spent its force, all rose, shook the wet mortar from their clothes and ventured out. Mr. Sexton says that for fully ten minutes before the. storm reached East St. Louis he stood in his office and watched the grand elemental display that was playing such havoc in South St. Louis. He said at times the heavens seemed to brighten and he could see the storm moving northward at a rapid rate. He expected it to reach the East Side, but for the moment his attention was turned to a terrible gust of wind that came from the north. The contending forces were advancing to meet other, and they did with terrible force just about at the Eads bridge. Nothing but such combined force could have shaken and crumbled a span of the great bridge, is Mr. Sexton's opinion. The south wind was the stronger, but the brief fight the north wind gave it was deadly and terrific. Both aimed their wanton forces upon the defenseless victims on the Levee and upon the railroad warehouses in that section. That is why the result was so calamitous. The south wind, in its maddened triumph, swept on with terrible zeal and devastated every obstacle that human hand had raised to impede its march of destruction, and spared not life itself. "It was indeed a battle of the winds," continued Mr. Sexton, "and as a common enemy, Wast St. Louis will wear its scars for years to come."
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