Macon (GA) Telegraph, March 25, 1917, p. 4.
DEATH LIST GROWS TO37 FROM STORM
Six Additional Deaths Reported at New Albany, Indiana, During Yesterday
Relief Underway
New Albany, Indiana, March 24-With but six additional deaths reported during
the day, the work of searching the debris and measures of relief instituted
for the homeless, New Albany late today began to recover from the storm that
wrecked portions of the city late yesterday.
The deaths reported brought the list of fatalities to 37. Three-fourths of
the wrecked area, it was said, had been explored. The record of missing has
been kept only in a desultory way, but even that is being reduced almost
hourly by reports from missing persons who have been cared for in private
homes.
Of the 100 or more who were injured, it was said probably 75 were badly hurt
but that less than a dozen were serious.
The institution of relief measures was prompt. Citizens of Louisville, led
by the board of trade, subscribed over $12,000 and sent motor trucks loaded
with food and clothing. Later in the day the chamber of commerce issued an
appeal to the country for aid estimating that $200,000 was needed properly
to care for the injured and homeless.
The work of clearing away the wreckage and searching the ruins for bodies
today was under the supervision of a detachment of state troops. Sixty were
on duty today and 100 more are expected tomorrow when 200 inmates of the
Indiana State Reformatory at Jeffersonville, three miles away, will be put
to work. Monday an additional 200 men will be used with electricians and
other skilled labor from the institution in an effort to rehabilitate the
stricken section.
The first organized effort to establish the property loss resulted today in
an estimate of $1,133,000 including damaged or destroyed homes and contents.
When the rescuers today examined the ruins of the negro schoolhouse that was
expected to yield a number of bodies, they found a badly frightened but
practically unhurt negro boy. He had been pinioned beneath the debris but
was protected from harm by overhanging timbers.