Savoy Cyclone

By Johnny Wier

Now listen to the story which I’m going to tell.
It’s of a great tornado you all remember well.
‘Twas in the spring of eighty, the twenty-eighth of May
At ten o’clock that evening, Savoy was blown away.

The storm came bounding northward, the clouds looked deathly black,
And in our little city, it made its dreadful track.
The thoughts of it were awful. To hear the whirling wind,
To know that soon our buildings, would in the air ascend.

It came like a blue mountain with its electric fire,
The thunder with its lightening was roaring through the sky.
And soon it was approaching, Oh, what a horrid look.
And while the rain was pouring, our town a torrent took.

It comes, it strikes our city with mighty roaring wind.
The greatest scene of nature—The largest trees did bend.
And soon the largest houses were hurled into the air,
And then were dashed to pieces and left to perish there.

When after this was over, ‘twould make a person moan,
To hear the cries of wounded, to hear the dying groan.
The rain was still down pouring, one house was in a flame,
Had it not be raining, ‘twould have perished and in vain.

The water it was rolling, in torrents o’er the ground
And many under wreckage were lying almost drowned.
Then those that were able, as soon as they could head
In hunting up the wounded and carrying off the dead.

Too many they discovered were hastening to the tomb!
As they could not recover, they had to face their doom.
The wounded ones were carried to houses that were left.
And by the help of nurses, some were restored to health.

Then early the next morning, before ‘twas hardly light,
They gave the people warning what they’d passed through that night.
They sent right off for doctors, to set each wounded limb;
And in a few short hours, a train load of help rushed in.

The clouds had all then scattered, the sun was shining bright;
People came by hundreds to see the awful sight.
To Savoy College buildings, the wounded ones were sent,
And many days had ended before they homeward went.