TEACHERS FEARED A TORNADO.
Dismissed Pupils Yesterday When
Black Clouds Appeared.
Fearing that the black cloud which approached Kansas City from the northwest yesterday morning was bring a tornado, Miss Emma J. Lockett, principal of the Linwood school, Linwood and Woodland avenues, dismissed the 735 children under her care, and sent them scampering to their homes.
But she first called up P. Connor, the weather forecaster. After being assured that the coming storm was not a twister, she remembered how many times she had failed to take an umbrella when he said "Fair today," and had come home dripping, so she was not satisfied, but tried to call the school board. After several ineffectual attempts, the board's telephone being in use at each time, she noticed that the cloud was much nearer. At the rate it was coming, the children could barely have time to get to their own roofs before trees began to be uprooted. She rang the dismissal bell, telling her charges to go home at once.
But Mr. Connor was right, and Miss Lockett very sweetly admitted it after the cloud had passed. School was resumed at the afternoon hour.
The Catholic sisters in charge of St. Vincent's academy, Thirty-first street and Flora avenue, also dismissed their 250 pupils when the threatening clouds appeared.
In 1886 the Lathrop school, Eight and May streets, was partly wrecked by a storm. Several children were killed.
