the Great (Louisville) Tornado of 1890

Excerpts from an interview by T.E. Lyons of Kevin McQueen in LEO-- on his book, The Great Louisville Tornado of 1890...

Louisville’s most violent natural disaster...March 27, 1890, one of many tornados spat out by the 25th-deadliest storm in U.S. history tore up a staggeringly large portion of downtown, leaving a fatality total [near] triple digits...McQueen, an Eastern Kentucky University professor who’s written numerous books about “strange and obscure” topics in regional history...the events of that day — and its aftermath...

Comments by McQueen:

...most people in Louisville had no idea on the morning of March 28 that an enormous twister had destroyed a large section of the city the night before. It was also surprising how quickly citizens cleaned up the destruction; within a month or so there was little evidence that the disaster had ever occurred....Louisville refused to accept help from the federal government. The merchants, the wealthy, the churches, the charitable societies and the common citizens joined forces and, as a result, the city cleaned up its own damage, fixed its own economy, re-housed its own homeless and took care of its own charity cases.

There's that wild private sector in action...interesting!