While the sturdy Eads Bridge remained standing, nearly 300 feet of its eastern approach was torn away. Once the tornado made it to the Mississippi River, it decimated steamboats and other vessels in the harbor, breaking them into pieces and scattering them from the Missouri to the Illinois shore. The tornado even shot a shovel six inches into the trunk of a tree. Heavy iron fences, like one that surrounded Lafayette Park, were twisted and tangled until they were nearly unrecognizable. The tornado also uprooted trees more than half a century old and hurled them several blocks. Hundreds of miles of electric wires and thousands of telephone and telegraph poles were torn down by the fierce winds. Louis was destroyed as were factories, saloons, hospitals, mills, railroad yards, and churches throughout the city. It also rendered countless families homeless as it flattened entire neighborhoods and block after block of residential housing. Courtesy of the NOAA Photo Library.Īccording to the Missouri Weather Bureau Report for May 1896, the tornado caused as much as $25 million in damages-approximately $700 million today. Few of the workers escaped with their lives. Unfortunately, the building’s massive iron framework fell through the main floor onto them. According to the May 29, 1896, edition of the Chicago Tribune, “In all probability the exact number of those whose lives were crushed out by falling walls or who met their fate under the waters of the raging Mississippi will never be known.”Īt the Liggett and Myers Tobacco Factory, which was in the process of being constructed, several workmen took refuge in the basement. This single tornado is estimated to have killed at least 255 people and injured another thousand. Louis Tornado of 1896 still remains one of the deadliest tornadoes in United States history. While it was just one of nearly 40 tornadoes to touch down in the central and southern parts of the country between May 15 and May 28, the Great St.
It would most likely be rated as an EF4 today, with winds estimated between 168 and 199 mph. In less than half an hour, the tornado carved a three-mile-wide path of destruction across St. Louis Tornado” touched down 6 miles west of Eads Bridge. What would become known as the “Great Cyclone” or the “Great St. The barometric pressure dropped significantly. Moments later, the clouds took on a greenish hue and began to swirl ominously. Just after 5:00 p.m., the torrential rain, thunder, and lightning began. By midafternoon, a storm system had moved over Illinois and Missouri, blanketing the St. That fateful Wednesday began as many summer days still do in the Midwest-warm and muggy. Weather Conditions Set the Stage for the Great Cyclone Louis that not even the mighty bridge could withstand.
On May 27, 1896, a fearsome tornado wreaked havoc across St. Louis was the first to be constructed of true steel and was touted as being “tornado-proof.” For two decades, the bridge had resisted storms and floods, bolstering its indestructible reputation.
When it was dedicated in 1874, the Eads Bridge in St.
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