“Galveston, Texas, Sept. 12.—Charles S. Diehl, General Manager the Associated Press, Chicago: Asummary of the conditions prevailing at Galveston is more than human intellect can master. Briefly stated, the damage to property is anywhere between $15,000,000 and $20,000,000. The loss of life cannot be computed. No lists could be kept and all is simply guesswork. Those thrown out to sea and buried on the ground wherever found will reach the horrible total of at least 3,000 souls.“My estimate of the loss on the island of the City of Galveston and the immediate surrounding district is between 4,000 and 5,000 deaths. I do not make this statement in fright or excitement. The whole story will never be told, because it cannot be told. The necessities of those living are total. Not a single individual escaped property loss. The property on the island is wrecked; fully one-half totally swept out of existence. What our needs are can be computed by the world at large by the statement herewith submitted much better than I could possibly summarize them. The help must be immediate.“R. G. LOWE,“Manager Galveston News.”
“Galveston, Texas, Sept. 12.—Charles S. Diehl, General Manager the Associated Press, Chicago: Asummary of the conditions prevailing at Galveston is more than human intellect can master. Briefly stated, the damage to property is anywhere between $15,000,000 and $20,000,000. The loss of life cannot be computed. No lists could be kept and all is simply guesswork. Those thrown out to sea and buried on the ground wherever found will reach the horrible total of at least 3,000 souls.
“My estimate of the loss on the island of the City of Galveston and the immediate surrounding district is between 4,000 and 5,000 deaths. I do not make this statement in fright or excitement. The whole story will never be told, because it cannot be told. The necessities of those living are total. Not a single individual escaped property loss. The property on the island is wrecked; fully one-half totally swept out of existence. What our needs are can be computed by the world at large by the statement herewith submitted much better than I could possibly summarize them. The help must be immediate.
“R. G. LOWE,“Manager Galveston News.”
Thursday evening at the Tremont Hotel, in Galveston, occurred a wedding that was not attended with music and flowers and a gathering of merrymaking friends and relatives. On the contrary, it was peculiarly sad. Mrs. Brice Roberts expected some day to marry Earnest Mayo; the storm which desolated so many homes deprived her of almost everything on earth—father, mother, sister and brother. She was left destitute. Her sweetheart, too, was a sufferer. He lost much of his possessions in Dickinson, but he stepped bravely forward and took his sweetheart to his home.
Galveston began, September 14, to emerge from the valley of the shadow of death into which she had beenplunged for nearly a week, and on that day, for the first time, actual progress was made toward clearing up the city. The bodies of those killed and drowned in the storm had for the most part been disposed of. A large number was found when the debris was removed from wrecked buildings, but on that date there were no corpses to be seen save those occasionally cast up by the sea. As far as sight, at least, was concerned, the city was cleared of its dead.
They had been burned, thrown into the water, buried—anything to get them quickly out of sight. The chief danger of pestilence was due almost entirely to the large number of unburied cattle lying upon the island, whose decomposing carcasses polluted the air to an almost unbearable extent. This, however, was not in the city proper, but was a condition prevailing on the outskirts of Galveston. One great trouble heretofore had been the inability to organize gangs of laborers for the purpose of clearing the streets.
THE SAD SITUATION FOUR DAYS AFTER THE CATASTROPHE.
The situation in the stricken city on Wednesday, September 12, was horrible indeed. Men, women and children were dying for want of food and scores went insane from the terrible strain to which they had been subjected.
In his appeal to the country for aid, issued on Tuesday, September 11, Mayor Walter J. Jones said fully 5,000 people had lost their lives during the hurricane, this estimate being based upon personal information. Captain Charles Clarke, a vessel-owner of Galveston, and a reliable man, said the death list would be even greater thanthat, and he was backed in his opinion by several other conservative men who had no desire to exaggerate the losses, but felt that they are justified in letting the country know the full extent of the disaster in order that the necessary relief might be supplied.
It was the general opinion that to hide any of the facts would be criminal.
Captain Clarke was not a sensationalist, but he well knew that the truth was what the people of the United States wanted at that time.
If the people of the country at large felt they were being deceived in anything they would be apt to close their pocketbooks and refuse to give anything.
If told the truth they would respond to the appeal for aid generously.
When relief finally began to pour in it was remarkable how soon the women of the city plucked up courage, and went to work with the men.
They had suffered frightfully, but they refused to give up hope.
Many called upon the mayor and offered their services as nurses.
Others prepared bandages for the wounded and aided the physicians in procuring medicines for the sick.
They went among the men who were engaged in burying and otherwise disposing of the dead and cheered them with bright faces and soothing words.
They were everywhere, and their presence was as rays of sunshine after the black clouds of the storm.
A regular fleet of steamers and barges was plying between Galveston and Texas City, only six miles distant, and which had railway communication with all parts of the United States. As the railroad line to TexasCity had been repaired, trains were sent in there as close together as possible, but this did not prevent many hundreds in Galveston from dying of starvation and lack of medical attendance.
A CITY OFFICIAL’S VERSION OF THE REIGN OF TERROR
A leading city official of Galveston gave the following version of the Reign of Terror, as the regime of the thugs and ghouls was called:
“Galveston suffered in every conceivable way since the catastrophe of Saturday. Hurricane and flood came first; then famine, and then vandalism. Scores of reckless criminals flocked to the city by the first boats that landed there, and were unchecked in their work of robbery of the helpless dead Monday and Tuesday.
“Wednesday, however, Captain Rafferty, commanding the regulars at the beach barracks, sent seventy men of an artillery company there to do guard duty in the streets, and, being ordered to promptly shoot all those found looting, carried out their instructions to the letter.
“Over 100 ghouls were shot Wednesday afternoon and evening, and no mercy was shown vandals. If they were not killed at the first volley the troops—regulars of the United States army and those of the Texas National Guard—saw that the coup de grace was administered.
“Most of the robbers were negroes, and when executed were found loaded with spoil—jewelry wrenched from the bodies of women, money and watches and silverware and other articles taken from residences and business houses.
“Not only had these fiends robbed the dead, but they mutilated the bodies as well, in many instances fingers and ears of dead women being amputated in order tosecure the jewelry. Some of the business organizations of the city also furnished guards to assist in patroling the streets, and fully 1,000 men are now on duty.
Wednesday evening the regulars shot forty-nine ghouls after they had been tried by court-martial, having found them in possession of large quantities of plunder. The vandals begged for mercy, but none was shown them and they were speedily put out of the way. The bandits, as a rule, obtained transportation to the city by representing themselves as having been engaged to do relief work and to aid in burying the dead. Shortly after the first bunch of thieves was executed another party of twenty was shot. The outlaws were afterward put out of the way by twos and threes, it being their habit to travel in gangs and never alone. In every instance the pockets of these bandits were found filled with plunder.
More than 2,000 bodies had been thrown into the sea up to Wednesday night, this having been decided upon by the authorities as the only way of preventing a visitation of pestilence, which, they felt, should not be added to the horrors the city had already experienced. Tuesday evening, shortly before darkness set in, three barges, containing 700 bodies, were sent out to sea, the corpses being thrown into the water after being heavily weighted to prevent the possibility of their afterwards coming to the surface. As there were few volunteers for this ghastly work, troops and police officers were sent out to impress men for the service, but while these unwilling laborers, after being filled with liquor, agreed to handle the bodies of white men, women and children, nothing could induce them to touch the negro dead. Finally city firemen came forward and attended to the disposal of the corpses of the colored victims. These were badlydecomposed, and it was absolutely necessary to get them out of the way to prevent infection.
No attempt had been made so far to gather up the dead at night because the gas and electric light plants were so badly damaged that they could furnish no illumination whatever. By Thursday night, however, some of the arc lights were ready for use. Since Wednesday morning no efforts at identification were made by the searchers after the dead, it being imperative that the bodies be disposed of as soon as possible. While the barges containing the bodies were on their way out to sea lists were made, but that was the only care taken in regard to the victims, many of whom were among the most prominent people of the city. Of the hundreds buried at Virginia Point and other places along the coast not 10 per cent were identified, the stakes at the heads of the hastily dug graves simply being marked, “White woman, aged 30,” “White man, aged 45,” or “Male” or “Female child.”
Ninety-six bodies were buried at Texas City, all but eight of which floated to that place from Galveston. Some were identified, but the great majority were not. State troops were stationed at Texas City and Virginia Point to prevent those who could not give a satisfactory account of themselves from boarding boats bound for Galveston. In burying the dead along the shore of the gulf no coffins were used, the supply being exhausted. There was no time to knock even an ordinary pine box together. Cases were known where people have buried their dead in their yards.
As soon as possible the work of cremating the bodies of the dead began. Vast funeral pyres were erected and the corpses placed thereon, the incineration being under the supervision of the fire department. Matters had come to such a pass that even the casting of bodies intothe sea was not only dangerous to those who handled them, but there was the utmost danger in carrying the decomposed, putrefying masses of human flesh through the streets to the barges on the beach. The cemeteries were not fit for burial purposes, and no attempt whatever was made to reach them until the ground was thoroughly dried out. Then the bodies of those buried in private grounds, yards and in the sands along the beach, not only on Galveston Island, but at Virginia Point and Texas City, were removed to the public places of interment, where suitable memorials were set up to mark their last resting places. It might have been deemed unfeeling and even brutal, but the fact was that the bodies of the unidentified victims received small consideration, being handled roughly by the workmen, and thrown into the temporary graves along the beach as though they were animals and not the remains of human beings. No prayers were uttered save in isolated instances, and the poor mangled bodies were consigned to the trench as hurriedly as possible. The burying parties had no time for sentiment, and so accustomed had the workers in the “dead gangs,” as they were named, become to their grewsome task that they even laughed and joked when laying away the corpses.
Special attention was given the wounded. Physicians were on duty all the time, some of them not having been to bed since Friday night longer than an hour at a time. Victims not badly hurt were put aside for those suffering and actually requiring the services of surgeons. There were thousands of them. There were few in Galveston who did not bear the marks of wounds of some sort.
Thrilling Experiences of People During the Great Storm—Eighty-five Persons Perish by Being Blown from a Train—Adventures of Survivors at Galveston.
Thrilling Experiences of People During the Great Storm—Eighty-five Persons Perish by Being Blown from a Train—Adventures of Survivors at Galveston.
The experiences and adventures of those who were in the great and disastrous storm and escaped only after undergoing frightful anxiety, make interesting reading. Those who emerged in safety from the fearful vortex were unusually fortunate, when it is considered that possibly 8,000 persons in Galveston lost their lives and hundreds fell victims to the fury of the hurricane in the territory adjacent to the ill-fated city.
Hon. John H. Poe, member of the Louisiana State Board of Education, and residing at Lake Charles, La., was present when eighty-five passengers on the Gulf & Interstate train which left Beaumont early Saturday morning from Bolivar Point lost their lives. Mr. Poe was one of the passengers on this train and fortunately, together with a few others, sought safety in the lighthouse at Bolivar Point and was saved. The train reached Bolivar about noon and all preparations were made to run the train on the ferryboat preparatory to crossing the bay. But the wind blew so swiftly that the ferry could not make a landing and the conductor of the train, after allowing it to stand on the tracks for a few minutes, started to back it back toward Beaumont. The wind increased so rapidly, coming in from the open sea, that soon the water had reached a level with the bottom of the seats within the cars. It was then that some of the passengers sought safety in the nearby lighthouse, but in spite of all efforts eighty-five passengers were blown away or drowned. The train was entirely wrecked.Some of the killed were from New Orleans, as the train made direct connections with the Southern Pacific train which left New Orleans Friday night.
Those who were saved had to spend over fifty hours in the dismal lighthouse on almost no rations. The experience was one they will remember as one of the most terrible of their whole lives.
COMMERCIAL TRAVELER’S EXPERIENCE IN GALVESTON.
A graphic description of one man’s experience was given by a commercial traveler—William Van Eaton. He reached Galveston Saturday morning. His narrative is especially interesting, because it shows with what suddenness the storm assumed a dangerous character.
“There was high wind and rain,” said he, “but so little was thought of it, however, that myself and some acquaintances started down to the beach. The water came up so rapidly that we turned and hurried toward the Tremont Hotel. Before we reached it we had to wade in water waist deep.
“Within a few minutes,” he went on to say, “women and children began to flock to the hotel for refuge. All were panic-stricken. I saw two women, one with a child, trying to get to the hotel. They were drowned not 300 yards from us.”
Mr. Van Eaton was one of the first to cross from Galveston to the mainland after the storm subsided. He paid $15 to a boatman to make the crossing. When he reached the point he found an engine and a caboose chained together, with the water several feet deep around them. While he waited in the caboose for the water to go down the bodies of two men and a boy floated againstit, and the trainmen tied them to one end of the car. Mr. Van Eaton counted fourteen bodies that had drifted in from the bay, all showing that they had been dashed against wreckage.
ONLY ONE OUT OF FIFTY PEOPLE SAVED.
Patrick Joyce, a railroad man, who passed through the storm at Galveston in 1872, suffered such hardships in that city Saturday morning that he was convinced that the storm at that time was only a “mild little blow” in comparison. He was one of the refugees picked up at Lamarque.
“It began raining in Galveston early Saturday morning,” he said. “About 9 o’clock work was discontinued by the company, and I left for home. I got there about 11 o’clock and found about three feet of water in the yard. It began to get worse and worse, the water getting higher and the wind stronger, until it was almost as bad as the gulf itself with its raging torrents. Finally the house was taken off its foundation and demolished.
“There were nine families in the house, which was a large two-story frame, and of the fifty people residing there myself and niece were the only ones who could get away. I managed to find a raft of driftwood or wreckage and got on it, going with the tide. I had not got far before I was struck with some wreckage and my niece knocked out of my arms. I could not save her, and had to see her drown.
“I was carried on and on with the tide, sometimes on a raft, and again I was thrown from it by coming in contact with some pieces of timber, parts of houses, logs, cisterns and other things which were floating around in the gulf and bay. Many and many a knock I got on myhead and body, until I was black and blue all over. The wind was blowing at a terrific rate of speed and the waves were away up.
“I drifted and swam all night, not knowing where I was going or in what direction. About 3 o’clock in the morning I began to feel the hard ground, and then I knew I was on the mainland. I wandered around until I came to a house, and there a person gave me some clothes. I had lost most of mine soon after I started, and only wore a coat.
“I was in the water about seven hours, and this sensation, together with the feeling of all these bruises I have on my head and body, is not a pleasant one. I managed to save my own life through the hardest kind of a struggle, but I thought more than once I was done for, and I lost all I had in this world—relatives who were dear to me, home and all.”
HEROISM OF A HOTEL-KEEPER IN SAVING LIVES.
James Black, a well-known merchant at Morgan’s Point, saved nine lives during the storm. The story of his heroism was told by W. S. Wall of Houston, Tex., who has a summer home at Morgan’s Point.
“My wife was taking supper at the Black Hotel,” said Mr. Wall, “when Mr. Black rushed into the dining-room and called upon all to fly for their lives. The tidal wave was on them in an instant, and almost before they could leave the hotel to go to a higher point where the Vincent residence stood, some five or six blocks away, the rushing waters were all about them more than three feet deep.
“Mr. Black, struggling against the elements, bore my wife in safety to the Vincent home, miraculously escapingbeing crushed by a heavy log which the rushing waters carried along the pathway of escape. Returning immediately to the hotel, Mr. Black in like manner brought safely to the Vincent home his aged father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. James Black, Sr. His next act of heroism was to rescue Mrs. Rushmore, her two daughters, two grandchildren and another woman whose name I cannot recall. The Vincent home withstood the storm, but the Black Hotel was wrecked.
“Louis Braquet, manager of the Black Hotel, was engulfed in the waves and gave up his life in the successful rescue of his wife and a colored servant girl.”
SPENT A MOST THRILLING NIGHT.
F. T. Woodward, who was a passenger on the first train to arrive at Dallas, Tex., from Houston, the Monday night succeeding the catastrophe, spent a thrilling Saturday night in the Grand Central station in the latter city. One hundred and fifty other persons shared his memorable experiences.
“The depot, standing as it does isolated and alone,” said Mr. Woodward, “was exposed to the full force of the hurricane, and the first strong gust at 8 o’clock was followed by a sound of shattering glass. Several of the windows of the general offices overhead had given away under the almost irresistible pressure. This was the beginning of seven hours of mortal dread.
“The storm continued to rage with unabated fury and the roar of the wind was accompanied by the sound of crashing glass, as one after another of the many windows was torn from its fastenings and shattered against the brick walls of the building or upon the sidewalk below. Women clasped their children in their arms, as thoughthey expected to be torn asunder the next moment. Men began to scan the pillars and partition walls supporting the floor above and to take up such positions as seemed to be most conducive to safety in the event the huge building was razed by the storm.
“The crashing of glass was soon followed by a sound of ripping and tearing. Section after section of the tin roof was rolled up like sheets of parchment and hurled hundreds of feet away. To add to the terror and confusion, the electric lights suddenly went out and the building was left in darkness, except where the trainmen with their lanterns stood.
“Then many moved toward the main entrance of the building, with the evident intention of seeking other quarters, but they were checked at the door by the blinding sheet of water which was being driven by the wind with mighty force, and which lay between them and any place of refuge. They appeared to hesitate between a choice of being drenched by water and possibly struck by a flying section of roof and of remaining in the depot until the end.
“The question was soon settled. Even as they looked the roof of the Grand Central Hotel was torn off, many of its inmates rushing into the street. Almost simultaneously a wail went up from the people in the Lawlor Hotel as the big skylight on top was torn loose and fell crashing down the shaft, causing pandemonium. This seemed to satisfy those in the depot that no haven of safety could be found, and they determined to make the best of the situation.
“Just then, above the roar of the wind, the crashing of glass and the flapping and pounding and tearing of tin, a new sound was heard. It was that of falling brick. Every one stood crouched, prepared to leap to either sideas the occasion might require. Every one realized the gravity of the situation, but, there was no shrieking, no fainting. Every woman stood the ordeal with such fortitude as to lend courage to even the faintest-hearted man. Even the babies were mute and clung to their mothers’ necks in breathless despair.
“Nearer and nearer came that awful rumbling. A shower of brick and mortar fell in the rear of the women’s waiting-room. Nothing remained of the tin-covered awning. Few if any doubted that the end had come and that in another moment all would be buried beneath the ruins.
“Suddenly the sound ceased. The brick had fallen and the lower story of the building remained intact. It was soon learned that the entire wall stood unbroken and that the fall of brick and mortar was but the collapse of several large chimneys surmounting the top of the building.
“As soon as this became known the effect upon the awe-stricken mass was electrical. Men lighted cigars, women cheered and laughed, and, though more chimneys fell, more glass was shivered and the loosened tin on the roof continued to pound furiously until nearly 3 o’clock in the morning, there was no more panic, and all felt that the building would withstand the fury of the storm. And it did.”
HOW HE GOT INTO AND OUT OF GALVESTON.
A. V. Kellogg, civil engineer in the employ of the Houston and Texas Central Railroad, with headquarters at Houston, told an interesting story of how he got into and out of Galveston during and after the great storm, and of his observations in the stricken city. He went to Galveston Saturday morning, over the Galveston, Houston and Henderson Road, arriving a few hours after the storm began.
“When we crossed the bridge over Galveston Bay, going into Galveston,” said Mr. Kellogg, “the water had reached an elevation equal to the bottom caps of the pile bents, or two feet below the level of the track. After crossing the bridge and reaching a point some two miles beyond, we were stopped by reason of a washout of the track ahead, and were compelled to wait one hour for a relief train to come over the Galveston, Houston and Henderson track. During this period of one hour the water rose a foot and a half, running over the rails of the track.
“The relief train signaled us to return half a mile to higher ground, where the passengers were transferred, the train crew leaving with the passengers and going on the relief train. The water had reached an elevation of eight or ten inches above the Galveston, Houston and Henderson track, and was flowing in a westward direction at a terrific speed. The train crew was compelled to wade ahead of the engine and dislodge driftwood from the track.
“At 1:15 we arrived at the Santa Fe Union Depot. At that period of the day the wind was increasing and had then reached a velocity of about thirty-five miles an hour.
“After arriving at Galveston I immediately went to the Tremont Hotel, where I remained the balance of the day and during the night. At 5:30 the water had begun to creep into the rotunda of the hotel, and by 8 o’clock it was twenty-six inches above the floor of the hotel, or about six and one-half feet above the street level.
“The front windows of the hotel were blown out, the roof was torn off and the skylights over the rotunda fell crashing on the floor below. The refugees began to come into the hotel between 5:30 and 8 o’clock, until at least 800 or 1,000 persons had sought safety there. The floors were strewn with people all during the night.
“Manager George Korst did everything in his power to help the sufferers from the effects of the storm and to give them shelter. When the wind was blowing from the northeast it was at a velocity of about forty-five miles an hour, but at 8 o’clock it had reached the climax, the speed then being fully 100 miles. The vibration of the hotel was not unlike that of a box car in motion. I tried to sleep that night, but there was so much noise and confusion from the crashing of buildings that I could not get any rest.
“I arose early Sunday morning. The sights in the streets were simply appalling. The water on Tremont street had lowered some eight feet from the high-water mark, leaving the pavement clear for two blocks north and seven blocks south of the Tremont Hotel. The streets were full of debris, the wires were all down and the buildings were in a very much damaged condition. Every building in the business district was damaged to some extent, with but one or two exceptions, noticeably the Levy Building and Union Depot, both of which remain intact and went through the storm without a scratch.
“The refugees came pouring into the heart of the city, many of them having but little clothing, and scores were almost naked. They were homeless and without food or drink, and many had lost their all and were really in destitute circumstances.
“Mayor Jones issued a call for a mass meeting, which was held Sunday morning at 9 o’clock, and was attended by a large number of prominent citizens. Steps were taken to furnish provisions and relieve the suffering of the refugees and bury the dead.
“A conservative estimate of the number of people killed or drowned is from 1,500 to 3,000.
“Early in the morning it was learned that the water supply had been cut off from some unknown reason. I presume that it was caused by the English ship which was blown up against the bridges, cutting the pipes. At all events the city was without water, and something had to be done by the citizens of Houston to relieve the situation. People who had depended on cisterns, of course, had their resources swept away, and there were but few large reservoirs to be found in the business district.
“The scene on the docks was a terrible one. The small working fleet and the larger schooners were washed up over the docks and railroad tracks in frightful confusion. The Mallory docks were demolished. The elevators were torn in shreds. Three ocean liners were anchored off the docks and seemed to be in good condition. The damage to the shipping interests is something immense, the Huntington improvements being entirely swept away.
“I tried to get out of the town as quick as I could, and succeeded in securing passage on the first sloop which sailed, the Annie K., Captain Willoughby. We sailed from the Twenty-second slip at 11 o’clock, with seven people aboard. When we got outside of the harbor we found a terrible gale blowing and the sea running very high. Under three reefs and the peak down, we set our course for North Galveston.
“As we passed Pelican Flats we could see the English steamer anchored off over toward where the railroad bridge should be, and came to the conclusion that she had evidently broken the water mains and cut the supply off from the city. Another ocean liner could be seen off the shore of Texas City, in what would seem to have been about two feet of water in a normal tide.
“We passed within a few hundred yards of where theHalf-Moon Lighthouse once stood, but could see no evidence of the lighthouse, it being completely washed away.
“The waters of the bay were strewn with hundreds of carcasses of dead animals. We had a very hazardous passage, running against a five-mile tide, but managed to reach North Galveston at 1:35 o’clock.
“At North Galveston we found that a tidal wave had crossed the peninsula, carrying destruction in its path. The factory building and the opera-house were completely blown down and other buildings destroyed. While there were no deaths reported at North Galveston, there were many hardships endured during the battle with the elements.”
NEWSPAPER MAN’S GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF THE FLOOD.
“It was one of the most awful tragedies of modern times which has visited Galveston. The city is in ruins and the dead will number probably 1,000.”
So says Richard Spillane, a well-known Galveston newspaper man, the first of his profession to come from the stricken city after the hurricane, and who arrived at Houston, after a perilous trip. He continued:
“I am just from the city, having been commissioned by the Mayor and Citizens’ Committee to get in touch with the outside world and appeal for help. Houston was the nearest point at which working telegraph instruments could be found, the wires, as well as nearly all the buildings, between here and the Gulf of Mexico being wrecked.
“When I left Galveston, shortly before noon yesterday, the people were organizing for the prompt burial of thedead, the distribution of food and all necessary work after a period of disaster.
“The wreck of Galveston was brought about by a tempest so terrible that no words can adequately describe its intensity, and by a flood which turned the city into a raging sea. The Weather Bureau records show that the wind attained a velocity of eighty-four miles an hour, when the measuring instruments blew away, so it is impossible to tell what was the maximum.
“The storm began at 2 o’clock Saturday morning. Previous to that a great storm had been raging in the gulf, and the tide was very high. The wind at first came from the north and was in direct opposition to the force from the gulf. While the storm in the gulf piled the water upon the beach side of the city, the north wind piled the water from the bay onto the bay part of the city.
“About noon it became evident that the city was going to be visited with disaster. Hundreds of residences along the beach front were hurriedly abandoned, the families fleeing to dwellings in higher portions of the city. Every home was opened to the refugees, black or white. The winds were rising constantly, and it rained in torrents. The wind was so fierce that the rain cut like a knife.
“By 5 o’clock the waters of the gulf and bay met, and by dark the entire city was submerged. The flooding of the electric light plant and the gas plants left the city in darkness. To go upon the streets was to court death. The wind was then at cyclonic velocity. Roofs, cisterns, portions of buildings, telegraph poles and walls were falling, and the noise of the wind and the crashing of the buildings were terrifying in the extreme.
“The wind and waters rose steadily from dark until 1:45 o’clock Sunday morning. During all this time thepeople of Galveston were like rats in traps. The highest portion of the city was four to five feet under water, while in the great majority of cases the streets were submerged to a depth of ten feet. To leave a house was to drown. To remain was to court death in the wreckage. Such a night of agony has seldom been equaled.
“Without apparent reason, the waters suddenly began to subside at 1:45 a. m. Within twenty minutes they had gone down two feet, and before daylight the streets were practically freed of the flood waters. In the meantime the wind had veered to the southeast.
“Very few if any buildings escaped injury. There is hardly a habitable dry house in the city. When the people who had escaped death went out at daylight to view the work of the tempest and the floods they saw the most horrible sights imaginable.
“In the three blocks from Avenue N to Avenue P, in Tremont street, I saw eight bodies. Four corpses were in one yard. The whole of the business front for three blocks in from the gulf was stripped of every vestige of habitation, the dwellings, the great bathing establishments, the Olympia and every structure having been either carried out to sea or its ruins piled in a pyramid far into the town, according to the vagaries of the tempest.
“The first hurried glance over the city showed that the largest structures, supposed to be the most substantially built, suffered the greatest. The Orphans’ Home, Twenty-first street and Avenue M, fell like a house of cards. How many dead children and refugees are in the ruins could not be ascertained.
“Of the sick in St. Mary’s Infirmary, together with the attendants, only eight are understood to have been saved.
“The Old Woman’s Home, on Rosenberg avenue, collapsed, and the Rosenberg Schoolhouse is a mass of wreckage. The Ball High School is but an empty shell, crushed and broken. Every church in the city, with possibly one or two exceptions, is in ruins.
“At the forts nearly all the soldiers are reported dead, they having been in temporary quarters, which gave them no protection against the tempest or the flood.
“The bay front from end to end is in ruins. Nothing but piling and the wreck of great warehouses remains. The elevators lost all their superworks and their stocks are damaged by water.
“The life-saving station at Fort Point was carried away, the crew being swept across the bay fourteen miles to Texas City. I saw Captain Haines yesterday and he told me that his wife and one of his crew were drowned.
“The shore at Texas City contains enough wreckage to rebuild a city. Eight persons who were swept across the bay during the storm were picked up there alive. Five corpses were also picked up. In addition to the living and the dead which the storm cast up at Texas City, caskets and coffins from one of the cemeteries at Galveston were fished out of the water there.
“The cotton mills, the bagging factory, the gas works, the electric light works and nearly all the industrial establishments of the city are either wrecked or crippled. The flood left a slime about one inch deep over the whole city, and unless fast progress is made in burying corpses and carcasses of animals there is danger of pestilence.
“Some of the stories of the escapes are miraculous. William Nisbett, a cotton man, was buried in the ruins of the Cotton Exchange saloon, and when dug out in the morning had no further injury than a few bruised fingers.
“Dr. S. O. Young, secretary of the Cotton Exchange,was knocked senseless when his house collapsed, but was revived by the water and carried ten blocks by the hurricane.
“A woman who had just given birth to a child was carried from her home to a house a block distant, the men who were carrying her having to hold her high above their heads, as the water was five feet deep when she was moved.
“Many stories were current of houses falling and inmates escaping. Clarence N. Ousley, editor of the Galveston Evening Tribune, had his family and the families of two neighbors in his house when the lower half crumbled and the upper part slipped down into the water. Not one in the house was hurt.
“Of the Lavine family, six out of seven are reported dead. Of the Burnett family only one is known to have been saved. The family of Stanley G. Spencer, who met death in the Cotton Exchange saloon, is reported to be dead.
“The Mistrot House, in the west end, was turned into a hospital. All of the regular hospitals of the city were unavailable.
“Of the new Southern Pacific works little remains but the piling. Half a million feet of lumber was carried away, and Engineer Boschke says, as far as the company is concerned, it might as well start over again.
“Eight ocean steamers were torn from their moorings and stranded in the bay. The Kendall Castle was carried over the flats from the Thirty-third street wharf to Texas City and lies in the wreckage of the Inman pier. The Norwegian steamer Gyller is stranded between Texas City and Virginia Point. An ocean liner was swirled around through the West Bay, crashed through the bay bridges and is now lying in a few feet of water near thewreckage of the railroad bridges. The steamship Taunton was carried across Pelican Point and is stranded about ten miles up toward East Bay. The Mallory steamer Alamo was torn from her wharf and dashed upon Pelican flats and the bow of the British steamer Red Cross, which had previously been hurled there. The stern of the Alamo is stove in and the bow of the Red Cross is crushed.
“Down the channel to the jetties two other ocean steamships lie grounded. Some schooners, barges and smaller craft are strewn bottom side up along the slips of the piers. The tug Louise of the Houston Direct Navigation Company is also a wreck.
“It will take a week to tabulate the dead and the missing and to get anything near an approximate idea of the monetary loss. It is safe to assume that one-half of the property of the city is wiped out and that one-half of the residents have to face absolute poverty.
“At Texas City three of the residents were drowned. One man stepped into a well by a mischance and his corpse was found there. Two other men ventured along the bay front during the height of the storm and were killed. There are but few buildings at Texas City that do not tell the story of the storm. The hotel is a complete ruin.
“For ten miles inland from the shore it is a common sight to see small craft, such as steam launches, schooners and oyster sloops. The life boat of the life-saving station was carried half a mile inland, while a vessel that was anchored in Moses Bayou lies high and dry five miles up from Lamarque.”
WENT THROUGH THE STORM OF 1875.
“The great storm which has just devastated Galveston reminds me of the terrible equinoctial storm that sweptover that city in September, 1875,” said Dr. Henry Stanhope Bunting of room 500, 57 Washington street, Chicago.
“At that time I was a resident of Galveston, and my experience was similar to that of many others who escaped. The loss of life and property was great.
“The situation of Galveston exposes the city to the waves whenever there is a severe windstorm. The island is thirty miles long and quite narrow. It is really only a great sand bar, rising four to five feet above the surface of the gulf. At their highest point the sand banks are not more than ten feet above the normal surface of the water.
“The city is built at the northern end of the island at the entrance to Galveston Bay. The opening to the bay between the end of the island and the mainland gives the water a free sweep over the jetties when a heavy wind is blowing. In this way waves running several feet high pour immense volumes of water into the bay, causing its waters to rise many feet and flood the lowlands. In the rush of the waters back toward the gulf the narrow channel entrance to the bay is not a sufficient outlet and the flood sweeps into the city.
“It is seldom that the equinoctial storms are so severe that the back flow of the water inundates the island. In very heavy storms, however, as in the latest hurricane, the great waves might sweep across the island from the gulf and add to the work of destruction in rushing back to the gulf from the bay.
“The houses have no cellars. They are built on pillars of brick several feet above the ground. When the water is high it washes up to the first floor and sometimes drives the occupants of the building to the second story.
“When the storm struck in 1875 we were at a house near the water’s edge five miles down the island from Galveston. The waves lifted the house off its brick pillarsand dropped it in the water and sand tilted at an angle of 45 degrees. With other families we took refuge at a house on much higher ground, but even there we were driven to the second story.”
AWFUL EXPERIENCES DURING THE FLOOD. FIFTY-TWO FAMILIES MEET DEATH IN ONE HUGE BUILDING—RESCUERS’ LOVED ONES PERISH.
John Davis, having apartments in a huge flat building, whose wife was killed, and for whose body he was searching in the debris of the structure, said there were fifty-two families there when the house collapsed, and he was the only survivor.
Policemen Joseph Bird and John Rowan rescued about 100 people Saturday from the fury of the storm. They returned to the police station only when the high water floated the patrol wagon and threatened to drown their team. They had no idea that the waters of the gulf had invaded the western portion of the city where they lived until they returned to the police station. They started immediately for their homes, but their families had been swept away. Policeman Bird lost his wife and five children and Rowan his wife and three children.
Many refugees were picked up at Hitchcock and taken to the Jacquard Hotel, where they were given every possible attention. Many of these refugees were suffering from injuries and had been in the water for some time.
Most of these persons had floated in on drift and rafts, and one of the party came ashore on a piano.
One hundred ammunition boxes from Camp Hawley were found near Hitchcock, and a pile-driver from Huntington wharf was driven inland to within a few hundred yards of the town. The prairie was covered with drift ofall kinds, dead cattle, water craft of all sizes, buggies, wagons and such like. Searching parties found dozens of bodies in Hall’s Bayou and buried them.
SEES FAMILY SWEPT AWAY.
One of the refugees who arrived at Houston on the first relief train from Texas City, just out of Galveston, and who had a sad experience in the hurricane, was S. W. Clinton, an engineer at the fertilizing plant at the Galveston stock yards. Mr. Clinton’s family consisted of his wife and six children. When his house was washed away he managed to get two of his little boys safely to a raft, and with them he drifted helplessly about. His raft collided with wreckage of every description and was split in two and he was forced to witness the drowning of his sons, being unable to help them in any way. Mr. Clinton says parts of the city are seething masses of water.
ESCAPED, BUT LOST HIS WIFE.
Mr. Jennings, a slater, who resided at Thirty-eighth street and Avenue M ½, Galveston, got to the mainland in about the same manner as Clinton. After losing his wife, he set out, and by swimming and drifting around reached the mainland.
William Smith, a boy about 18 years old, whose home is in West Texas, had a narrow escape. Young Smith was blown off the docks and came ashore in the driftwood. Despite the difficulty he experienced in keeping afloat he held out to the end and reached the shore safe and sound.
A. L. Forbes, a United States postal clerk, whose car was attached to a train which passed through the territory not far from Galveston on Sunday, said that atOyster Creek the train crew and passengers heard cries coming out of a mass of debris. Several persons answered the cries and found a negro woman fastened under a roof. They pulled her out and she informed her rescuers there were others under the roof. A further search resulted in the finding of nine dead bodies, all colored persons.
When the train arrived at Angleton, the jail, all the churches and a number of houses had been blown down.
A GENUINE HELL UPON EARTH.
Joseph Johnson, a prominent citizen of Austin, Tex., who was among the list of missing, arrived at home Wednesday evening, direct from Galveston, and was received with joy by his family. Mr. Johnson went to Galveston on Friday, the day before the disaster, and was there during all the terrible storm and until Tuesday night, where he aided in the work of rescue and saw some sorrowing sights. He said many of the survivors got through the flood almost by miracle. He saw young men who were black-haired on Saturday come out of the ordeal with hair turned completely white on Sunday.
“It would take 5,000 men one year,” he says, “to clear the streets and town of Galveston, so complete is the ruin. The biggest liar in America could not do justice to the existing condition of affairs there. I was in the Tremont Hotel during the storm. The building was thronged with refugees; women were praying throughout the night, and above the roar of the wind could be heard crash of buildings and splash of the waves against the building. We expected the hotel to go down any minute. At daylight Sunday morning I and four others started out to view the ruins. We passed eight bodies within a block, and when we reached the beach, wherethe waters were still running high, we stayed some time, and while there about one body per minute passed us, floating with the tide. Homes that were formerly elegant are a mass of wreckage.
“When I left the city the stench from decaying human bodies was simply terrible and almost unbearable. It is with difficulty that they can be handled at all, and the only ones who can now do the work are negroes. The sight is sickening. It is impossible to make any effort at identification, except to keep a record of the jewels and valuables taken from them. All pretense at holding inquests was abandoned yesterday. The bodies are piled on drays and hauled to the wharf, where they are lowered into the water. They are piled one on the other like so many animals, it being impossible to give them any attention. The bodies of poor and rich alike are treated in this manner. Hundreds of men and women who are seeking friends or relatives who are among the missing surround the places where the bodies are handled, and their cries of distress are almost unbearable.
“There was not a living animal on the island so far as I could see. Thousands of head of cattle and horses were drowned and killed. No cats or dogs survived the storm and not a bird is to be seen. No one can make anything like a reliable estimate of the number of deaths. I had to walk for twelve miles from the place where I landed on the mainland before I got out of the wreckage. The water swept the coast for a distance of twenty miles inland, and dead bodies are to be seen all over this territory. I passed a large number on my walk to get a train. The stench in this storm-swept part of the mainland is awful. It is estimated that over 5,000 head of cattle were drowned by the gulf waters in that section.”
STRANGE DEATH OF A WEALTHY ENGLISHMAN.
One of the most pathetic stories of suffering in Galveston was brought to light Friday morning when the Southern Pacific train arrived at New Orleans from Houston. Among the passengers were Mrs. Mary Quayle of Liverpool, England, and Mr. Jonathan Hale of Gloversville, N. Y. Mrs. Quayle came from New York to Galveston, arriving there on the Thursday before the storm, accompanied by her husband, Edward Quayle, a tabulater on the Liverpool Cotton Exchange. Mrs.Quayleand her husband took apartments in the Lucas Terrace, a fashionable place in the eastern end of Galveston Island.
All day Saturday, the day of the storm, her husband was not feeling well and remained in his room most of the time, lying down on a couch. When the storm became very bad after 8 o’clock he arose and went to the window to look out in the darkness, hoping to see, by an occasional flash of lightning, whether or not there was danger of destruction, as was greatly feared.
Suddenly there came an unusually violent fit of wind and the window out of which Mr. Quayle was peering was literally sucked out as if by a mighty air-pump, and he was taken along with it. Mrs. Quayle, so far as she was able to explain, instead of being drawn along in the direction of the storm, was thrown in the opposite direction against the door of her room.
When she came to her senses she found she was not severely hurt, and began to call for her husband. There was no reply, and in her fright she fairly shrieked out his name. Mr. Hale, who occupied the adjoining room, came to her assistance and cared for her until dawn of Sunday morning. Then they went out together and searched the adjacent portion of the city for her missing husband. But not a trace of him was to be found. Thesearch was kept up until Monday night, by which time all the wounded had been cared for in the best possible way and all the unburied dead had become putrid. Then Mr. Hale brought Mrs. Quayle via Houston to New Orleans and they immediately took the through Louisville & Nashville train for New York.
Mr. Quayle had on his person some very valuable jewelry and quite a large sum of money at the time he disappeared. Luckily, however, Mrs. Quayle had enough money on her to pay her way back to England. She was completely overcome by fright and although having not yet reached the middle age, had all the appearance of being a frail, decrepit old woman, so terrible had been her recent and trying ordeal. She was compelled to remain in her berth while traveling.
UNNERVED BY WHAT HE SAW.
Michael B. Hancock, 3452 Dearborn street, Chicago, unnerved by the scenes of horror he witnessed among the ruins of Galveston on Tuesday, hastened to leave the stricken city, and arrived in Chicago Thursday afternoon. Sights of the dead bodies constantly before him, and, according to his statements, he had been practically without sleep since he first set foot on the island.
Hancock, who is a Pullman car porter, had a run from Chicago to Austin, Tex., but when he reached the end of his trip Monday he heard of the disaster at Galveston and decided to go with a relief party leaving Austin that night. The relief train was able to proceed only as far as Houston, and from there the goods were transported to the coast and put aboard a small excursion steamer.
Hancock was accompanied by his conductor, Frank Alphons. Although they were with the relief party, they were stopped several times by the pickets at the steamerlandings. After much difficulty they gained a view of the city and the dead.
While in the midst of their sightseeing they were accosted by United States soldiers and commanded to assist in the recovery and burning of the dead bodies. Feigning to acquiesce, they managed to draw away from the soldiers, and then made a run for the beach. A small boat carried them to the mainland, and they made a forced march of twelve miles before they were able to obtain a vehicle to take them to Houston. Reaching Houston late at night, they started at once for Austin and the north. Alphons stopped at St. Louis and Hancock came straight through.
When seen at his residence Thursday night Hancock said:
“The sights in the wrecked city of Galveston were the most horrible that I have ever witnessed. Dead bodies were everywhere. Part of the city had been blotted out. For a distance of two miles along the bay houses had been washed away and only the foundations left. The water had not yet entirely receded, and where business blocks and fine residences had once stood were simply holes marking the foundations. These were filled with floating debris and bodies of the drowned.
“The sight was ghastly in the extreme, as the working parties would arrive at one of these holes and start to drag the bodies of the dead from the pools of dirty water. Every one was expected to work at recovering the dead, and the soldiers corralled Alphons and me and told us that we would have to assist in the work. At that time we were standing watching a party of five men working under a guard. They were lassoing the bodies and pulling them out on the higher places, and then piling them on boards preparatory to burning them.