The Yuma Daily Sun from Yuma, Arizona • Page 11

Xenia Destruction 'Worse than Any Bombings' in German War XENIA, Ohio (AP) One witness described it as "worse than any of the bombings in Germany" during World War 11. He referred to the wreckage of Xenia, a southwestern Ohio town which officials said was "50 per cent destroyed" by a tornado that pounced down on its 25,000 citizens Wednesday afternoon. Officials said 30 persons were confirmed dead. More than 1.000 were homeless, and there were unconfirmed reports of 40 to 50 persons missing. About 1,500 Ohio National Guardsmen were ordered into the area to help in the clean-up and to prevent looting.

"It's the worst I've ever seen," said Oeorgeanne Water- cutter, a Ked Cross disaster worker. "It is complete devastation." "Tomorrow is going to be really bad," she said Wednesday night. "1 really believe shock will set in." People already numbed by the disaster were shaken again by new tornado warnings issued during the early morning hours today. But they remained calm, even as sirens wailed and trucks used loudspeakers into halls and stairwells until to announce, "Take cover! the funnel clouds swept by and Take cover!" They crowded disappeared. Many Saved By Miracles 'tr TOWN PULVERIZED An aerial view shows the massive destruction and pulverized homes in Xenia.

Ohin, after tornadoes ripped through the area late Wednesday. (AP Wirephoto) By ASSOCIATED PRESS' In Xenia, Ohio, the clocks stopped at 4:40 p.m. In Stringtown, they stopped at 3:07. And in Decatur, 111., at 2:35. They hang out of the walls that are still standing amidst the rubble of once-thriving little towns towns that lay haplessly along the path of tornadoes that slashed a swath of death and destruction Wednesday from the Deep South through the Ohio Valley to Canada.

The death toll passed SOU, and thousands were injured. Whole towns were in shambles. Some of the survivors had miraculous tales to tell. "I was opening the truck door and it just sucked me out" and into a mud ditch, said Jack Elser, 21, of Jerome, Mich. There was a sound "like a plane roaring overhead, the sky just turned all black and then pow! it hit." spinning his truck around and around, he said.

''We had 30 seconds warning before it hit," said Gary Heflin, manager of a grocery store in Xenia. "All yovi could hear was the wind, the crashes and people praying." In Decatur, 111., Marty Mil-' chell said she was talking on the phone when she saw a black funnel approaching. She yelled for herchildren and they ran down to the basement. "The food freezer was knocked over on us," she said. "Keith (her 10-year-old son) somehow wriggled out and he managed to lift the freezer from his sister and me.

We made our way upstairs again, and the house was gone." She said all that remained was an aquarium. In Charlottesville, a stark, spiral staircase struck a lonely pose in the spot where Donald Johnson's newly remodeled home once stood. "1 was ready to move my family into it next week. 1 don't know what else 1 can say about it." In Cincinnati, Ohio, Michael J. Schilling's 10-year-old daughter was giggling.

"Why shouldn't 1. I'm alive," she said. In Jasper radio announcer Joel Cook of station WARK said, "We can't talk to the Police Department it just blew away." Hob Deal was in a restaurant in Etowah, when a twister struck. "I told the people to get down," he said. "We got everyone under tables or up against the wall before it struck.

There were two little girls in there and they were terrified." Marilyn Leavelle's roof was torn off and the carport was flattened atop a new Oldsmobile at Kennard, Ind. "It only had HOD miles on it," she said of the car. "We left our old car outside, and it's okay." Two Boys Die In Shack Fire BULLHEAD CITY, Ariz. (AP) An investigation continued today into the deaths of two small boys, killed when a fire swept through a small shack on the outskirts of this Colorado River community. Mohave County sheriff's deputies said Scott Johnson, 8, and Peter Hill, fi.

both of Bullhead City, died in the fire Wednesday afternoon. Undersheriff Capt. Bob Spear said about 20 deputies searched around the small stone-walled building Wednesday night seeking information on the cause of the fire. The Bar-S boys guarantee their ham in writing. Nobody else does.

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Telephone lines to Xenia were cut by the twister, but Ohio Bell restored emergency service with mobile phones. The Red Cross set up a relief center in the YMCA. one of the few buildings spared by the tornado. It took in 350 homeless. A grocery warehouse housed several hundred more.

Behind the rubble of another building, bodies were arranged in a row. A woman bending over them suddenly cried out, "Oh, my God," and collapsed into the arms of a rescue worker. She had found her son. The manager of a demolished fast food restaurant said there might be 20 people trapped inside. The parking lot remained filled with cars.

A number of cars were flipped over on Main Street. Officials said some possibly still contained passengers, but heavy equipment could not get through the rubble in the street to lift the vehicles. The Xenia Hotel and the city's high schoob were flat- teiied. The armory, its roof caved in, was pressed into service. A freight train, 15 of its cars overturned by the vicious twister, blocked a highway crossing.

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