Poor Oklahoma by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 6, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 18.

Poor Oklahoma

By Editor

Poor Oklahoma.—Just as we are closing our forms, news comes of another appalling cyclonic visitation of Kansas and Oklahoma, especially in the vicinity of Guthrie. A mighty wall of water six feet high, spreading the river to a mile wide, swept down the Cottonwood Valley into the city of Guthrie, crushing buildings like egg-shells, drowning by its roar the dying screams of injured brute and human. The river in Guthrie is thirty feet above its ordinary level. It is impossible to obtain at the present writing accurate estimates of the loss of life. Scores are missing; buildings are still going. In one colored settlement a score are drowned. Some estimates say fifty people are drowned. The loss of property and life is appalling. Throughout the Territory heavy rains have occurred; from some sections waterspouts are reported; and rivers and creeks are full to danger point. In Lincoln and Payne Counties bridges and buildings have been destroyed and farms inundated. Many people have been drowned. Oklahoma suffered fearfully last year; her people should have the sympathy of all. And these fearful disasters of flood, tempest, cyclone, famine, pestilence, and war, recorded from week to week, should wean men's affections from earth to a better world. In and through and over it all the fourfold voice from the throne of God invites all to "come" unto Him who is able to save.