ALABAMA
FEB 19, 1884 2:30 pm 26 dead 80 injured
Deaths in six communities; 10 at Cross Plains (now called Piedmont) and 14 at Goshen.
GEORGIA
FEB 19, 1884 2:00 pm 22 dead 100 injured
Most deaths occurred south of Jasper, Pickens County, near Cagle and Tate; large homes swept away.
NORTH CAROLINA
FEB 19, 1884 8:00 pm 4 dead 50
Both large and small homes were destroyed in a swath across Union, Anson, Richmond, and Montgomery counties.
FEB 19, 1884 9:30 pm 23 dead 100 injured
Two people died in the Pee Dee area; 15 other died in the town of Philadelphia.
The United State’s Worst Tornadoes
“A CYCLONE which struck Amberson’s, Ala., demolished nearly every house in town. Fourteen persons were reported killed,
THE South has been visited by a tornado which destroyed thousands of houses and killed hundreds of people in Georgia, Alabama, North and South Carolina, Louisiana and Mississippi.
THE breaking of a dam on the Los Angeles river produced the most disastrous flood ever experienced in California.’ The lower part of Los Angeles was completely inundated, and forty buildings were swept away. Hundreds of families were obliged to abandon their homes and seek shelter on the hills, The loss amounts to $150,000, From Los Angeles to Mojave, a distance of 100 miles, hardly a mile of the Southern Pacific track remains in place, and east to San Gorgonio, eighty miles, the devastation is ‘equally great. The California Southern road ‘from Colton to San Diego is also washed out. Travel in all directions is suspended. It will probably be two months before communication can be properly established. Reports received from towns in the Southern portion of the San Joaquin valley announced the heaviest floods ever known.”
28 Feb 1884, 4 – Burlington Clipper at Newspapers.com
