USA > Texas > Galveston County > Galveston > The great Galveston disaster : containing a full and thrilling account of the most appalling calamity of modern times. > Part 6
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11
"To add to the horror of the situation, human hyenas moved stealthily among the dead, robbing those who were powerless to resist, but these ghouls in human guise are meeting with just retribution, for armed sentinels are now on guard and have orders to shoot them down as they would mad dogs.
"If the situation along the East Side was more horrible than that along the West, it was only because more people dwelt there and there were inore houses to be destroyed. Along either beach gaunt destruction held full sway, and each wave seemed inore cruel than that which it succeeded. Nor were the waves alone in their cruelty, for the winds reveled in maddened fury and seemed to vie with them in spreading ruin and desolation.
HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE CARRIED OUT TO SEA.
"The loss of life at Galveston will never be known. The storm came first from the northwest and hundreds, perhaps thou- sands, were carried far out to sea never more to return. At IO o'clock at night the wind suddenly veered to the southeast and hundreds more were swept into the bay and caught by the cur- rent and also carried out to the sea before daylight Sunday morn- ing. That is the opinion of old seamen with whom I conversed, and if they do not know the actions of the ocean, then no one does. " Monday evening and Tuesday morning I myself saw more than a hundred bodies floating out to sea and these were scarcely one per cent of those who perished. Responsible men with whom I talked and who had been from one end of the island to the other, estimated the loss at from 5,000 to 10,000, and all thought it would come nearer the last named figures than the first. Day by day as the debris is cleared away bodies will be found and many are buried beneath the ruins that will never be removed.
230
DOOMED CITY TURNED TO CHAOS.
during the day. The houses are sometimes to be found quite intact, but turned bottom up like an upturned dry goods box. Others are but so much kindling wood.
The greatest wreck is possibly the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, at Fourteenth and Broadway. The front wall is nearly all standing, with the steeples on either side, and the curved wall that surrounds the chancel seemed in pretty good shape, but the two side walls are gone beyond repair. The east side is standing about half way up, and the west side was thrown to the ground. Sand covers the campus in that neighborhood.
The University building suffered a good deal from the blow, but it was the haven of rest for all the people in that neighbor- hood, as it is now the hospital for the injured and the place of succor for the women and children.
GREAT WRECK OF ST. MARY'S INFIRMARY,
The next greatest wreck is the St. Mary's Infirmary on Mar- ket and Eighth streets. Practically everything there is gone but the new part, which was completed about two years ago. This is badly damaged, but is being used. It does not cover more than a quarter of the floor space of the entire building when intact. This is used to support injured and is the place of refuge. Sealy Hospital, between Ninth and Tenth streets, escaped serious injury, beyond damage to the roof.
The colored school, on the corner of Broadway and Tenth streets, is a mass of wreckage, piled up with the debris along the mountain chain previously described. This was a large two story frame building of eight rooms, and stood high in the air. A little Episcopal mission, located on the corner of Fifteenth and Avenue L, was carried northwest along Fifteenth street and broke up a block away. The gentleman who was in charge of the mission, Henry Hirsinger, was lost.
This great line of wreckage forms the division point between a mass of houses unroofed and partly damaged and a great prai- rie, which up to Saturday was the location of the homes of thou- sands of Galveston's people. This was generally known as the
231
DOOMED CITY TURNED TO CHAOS.
colored section of the city, but the colored people as a rule lived close to the beach. As a consequence they got seared early in the day and moved into town.
The result is that the death list is not as great proportion- ately among the colored people as it is among the whites, although a great many of them are missing. Prominent among the col- ored people missing are S. C. Cuney, a nephew of Wright Cuney, formerly collector of customs at this port. The rector of the col- ored Episcopal church, Rev. Thomas Cain, and his wife are lost.
The poles of the East Broadway street railway line are stand- ing ereet to Fourteenth street, beyond which there is but one pole. The wires are all down, as a matter of course, and the track is filled with wreckage. The line of wreckage crosses Broadway, between Thirteenth and Fourteenth streets, and in it at that point are several bodies which cannot be reached on account of the high pile of lumber.
HOUSES PLACED BACK TO BACK.
The great bulk of this debris is unbroken and sides and roofs of houses still intact, and the vast amount of loose boards can be used for rebuilding, so that there will be lessened cost in that direction. In some places whole houses have been moved from their foundations and carried around back of others, thus forming a barrier which caught the floating debris and prevented the whole north side of town being swept from Gulf to bay and carried into the bay.
The roof of the elevator is gone and the wheat there is exposed, but if fresh water can be obtained soon it is expected the wheat can be saved by drying. The sheds on the wharves are practically all gone, but the wharves are supposed to be in such shape that they can be repaired at a nominal expense and can be resumed.
The following letter was received at Fort Worth from C. H. Fewell, who is night yardmaster of the Santa Fe Railway Com- pany, at Galveston :
" The only means of sending mail or anything is by water
CHAPTER XII.
Thrilling Narratives by Eye-witnesses-Path of the Storm's Fury Through Galveston-Massive Heaps of Rubbish- Huge Buildings Swept into the Gulf.
A T GALVESTON on that fatal Saturday night there were deaths far more horrible than any of which even a Sien- kiewicz could conceive. Mothers and babes, fathers and husbands, were hurled headlong into the world beyond without a chance to make peace with their Maker, with a farewell kiss or a last fond embrace. Upon every hand the dead were piled up like drift-wood cast up by the sea, even as they were at Waterloo and Gettysburg and behind Kitchener in the Soudan. The bodies of men that the day before were perfect specimens of physical develop- nient were swollen and discolored by the fierce rays of the autumn su11, and were food for flies and maggots which buzzed or crawled hither and thither unceasingly. In the bay the sharks were over- fed, and on the prairies the buzzards could no longer be tempted.
If those who live far from the awful scene of woe, believe that this is over-drawn, let them ask the pale-faced nerve-racked refugees, from that terrible place, and they will be told that it is impossible for either pen or brush to give the picture as it is. The photo- grapher, with all his art, stands baffled. The artist, with all his talent, is incompetent. The newspaper man, accustomed to the dark side of life, shudders and turns from description to the work of reciting details, horrible enough in themselves, but far more pleasant.
There arrived in Dallas a score or more of men who told of decomposed bodies, and maggots and flies and starvation and dis- tress until their hearers rushed away in horror. Some of these heart-breaking tales are given lierewith.
Ed. A. Gebhard of The Dallas News came in from Texas City. He said :
"Among the many stories of the Galveston disaster I have 234
239
THRILLING NARRATIVES BY EYE-WITNESSES.
made the scene particularly horrible to witness, but extremely nauseating on account of the smell from the bodies. Particularly toward the close of Monday the bodies were found so rapidly that any effort to carry them to any special point for burial had about ceased and they were covered up in the sand, laid down on the wharf or left where they were found. Even after I was fortunate enough to get a schooner to carry me to Texas City it seemed that there were almost as many floating in the bay and being carried off or lying around on the mainland as I had seen in Galveston itself.
" It was a horrible experience which I passed through, which I hope will never occur again in my lifetime, aud I feel that I can- not too strongly call attention to the urgent needs, both in food and clothing, not only of the poor classes, but of the best people in Galveston, who up to the time of this terrible calamity had not known what want was, and who even now seein ill at ease in know- ing how to make their wants known."
STORM OF INDESCRIBABLE FURY.
Rudolph Daniels, Assistant General Passenger Agent of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway, was in Galveston during the storm, and returned to Dallas on the 12th. Mr. Daniels said: "I can only give you my experience and what I saw. The storm was indescribable in its fury, and it was hard to realize the extent of the devastation and destruction even when on the scene. It does not seem real or possible.
"I was in a restaurant near the Tremont Hotel when the storm broke. It began blowing a gale about 2 o'clock in the after- noon, but the wind did not reach an alarming height until about 4 o'clock. Myself and friends saw that it was going to be a storm of more than ordinary fury and started for the Tremont. The street was three feet deep in water and we got a carriage. We had to draw our feet up on the seats to keep out of the water.
"At 5 o'clock the wind was blowing a hurricane, and the water came over the sidewalk in front of the Tremont.
"The water in the street was full of telegraph poles, beer kegs,
241
THRILLING NARRATIVES BY EYE-WITNESSES.
experience. He came to the hotel and offered a hackinan any price to go to his house after his family, but could not induce him to go. Failing in that, he started back home to his wife. That was 7 o'clock, and he did not manage to reach home, one-half mile away, until 2.30 in the morning. We found them all safe. We saw several bodies on Tremont street on the way there.
"The organization of relief work began at once. It was soon seen that there was no time for the identification of bodies, and the work of taking them to sea for burial began. Along the Gulf front for three blocks back there is not a house standing, and I could see only one or two on the Denver resurvey.
" There was a meeting of all the railroad men in Galveston at 9 o'clock Tuesday morning, at which it was arranged that freight would be handled through Houston and the Clinton tap to Clinton and by barge to Galveston. The Galveston, Houston and Hender- son to handle passengers to Texas City and then to Galveston by the steamer Lawrence."
W. H. McGrath, general manager of the Dallas Electric Company, returned from Galveston yesterday. He said :
HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE STREWN FOR MILES.
"No words can express the scenes of death and desolation. Nothing can be said that will convey the full meaning. I went over to Galveston in a schooner and came away as soon as possible. · What they need there is not people, butt ice, water and supplies. All along the shore of the bay for twelve miles inland are strewn pianos, sofas, chairs, tables paving blocks and all sorts of broken lumber and debris from Galveston.
"General Scurry detailed my party to bury the dead on a stretch of beach about two-and-one-half miles long. In that space we found fourteen bodies, all women and children but two. The hot sun beating down and the action of the water had caused decomposition to set in at once. They were horribly bloated, and the eyes and tongues protruding and the bosoms of the women bursting open.
" None of the corpses had any clothing upon them. One man 16
243
THRILLING NARRATIVES BY EYE-WITNESSES.
George Hall, a traveling man who lives at 133 Thomas avenue, this city, returned from Galveston yesterday morning, having passed through the terrible scenes enacted there during and after the storm. To a News representative he said last night :
"I arrived at Galveston Friday afternoon, and my wife and little girl were to come down Saturday. At noon Saturday I noticed that the storm, which had been blowing all the morning, was getting worse. At that time I went to the tower of the [remont Hotel and saw the waves rolling in toward the land. I took just one look over the city and came down. The wind increased in violence from that on and the rain fell in sheets, and I sent a telegram to my wife and advised her to stop in Houston. I think that was the last telegram that was sent from the island, as a few moments afterwards the girl told me the wires had snapped. The storm was accompanied by no thunder or lightning.
CHILDREN CRYING AND WOMEN PRAYING.
" About 4 o'clock the people who were able to get conveyances began to come in from the residence districts. The hotel did not serve any supper. From 6 to 10 o'clock was the worst of the storm, and during that time there was about 1200 people in the house. We were just as nearly like rats in a wire cage as anything could be. At 10 o'clock the water was four feet deep in the office, and it was certain death to go out doors. We were in pitch darkness all the time, although some one had secured one candle and set it up in the dining-room. Children were crying and women praying and throwing their arms around the mens' knees and asking them to save them. It was certainly as horrible a night as any one ever put on earth. I have been on the road thirty years, have been in all parts of the world, have had many hairbreadth escapes, but they did not amount to a snap of the fingers besides this.
" We had one particularly hard gust that lasted about five minutes, and on looking at my watch I saw that was a little after IO o'clock. At 12 o'clock it had died down considerably, and the water fell two feet in about twenty minutes.
" In the early morning we ventured out, although it rained
245
THRILLING NARRATIVES BY EYE-WITNESSES.
not knowing where relatives or children were scattered about tlie corridors in deepest distress. It was remarkable that so few of them gave any outward sign or cry. Sunday morning the water was gone out of the rotunda and it was ankle deep in mud. I went out Tremont street to Aventie N12, where I came to water. People were coming in toward the higher ground sick, wounded and homeless. One hundred men were sworn in by the Mayor Sunday morning as a guard and relief work began at once. I came out Monday morning on the Charlotte M. Allen. From her I saw a barge loaded with corpses going to sea for burial and an- other at the dock was being loaded. A passenger on the Allen counted fifty floating bodies in the bay on the way up to Virginia Point. We had to walk to Texas City Junction and I saw Galves- ton paving blocks on the prairie north of Texas City."
CAST UP BY THE HEAVY WAVES.
Officers Williams and Curly Smith stated that the body of a woman that had been buried at sea on the east end was washed ashore on the beach near the foot of Tremont street. Attached to the body was a large rock weighing about 200 pounds. The body was carried to a place back from the water's edge and placed in a grave.
While working with a gang of men clearing the wreckage of a large number of houses on Avenue O and Centre street to-day Mr. John Vincent found a live prairie dog locked in a drawer of a bureau. It was impossible to identify the house or the name of its former occupants, as several houses were piled together in a mass of brick and timber. The bureau was pulled out of the wreckage a few feet from the ground, where it had been buried beneath about ten feet of débris. The little animal seemed not to be worse for his experience of four days locked up in a drawer beneath a moun- tain of wreckage. It was taken home and fed by Mr. Vincent, who will hold the pet for its owner if the owner survived the storm.
Some idea of the extent of the destructive path of the hurri- cane can be got from a view of the beach front east of Tremont street. Standing on the high ridge of débris that marks the line
246
THRILLING NARRATIVES BY EYE-WITNESSES.
of devastation extending from the extreme west end to Tremont street an unobstructed view of the awful wreckage is presented.
Drawing a line on the map of the city from the centre of Tre- m1ont street and Avenue P straight to Broadway and Thirteenth street where stands the partly demolished Sacred Heart Church, all the territory south and east of this line is leveled to the ground. The ridge of wreckage of the several hundred buildings that graced this section before the storm marks this line as accurately as if staked out by a surveying instrument. Every building within the large area was razed by the wind or force of the raging waters, or both.
This territory embraces sixty-seven blocks and was a thickly populated district. Not a house withstood the storm and those that might have held together if dependent upon their own construction and foundations were buried beneath the stream of buildings and wreckage that swept like a wild sea from the east to the west, de- molishing hundreds of homes and carrying the unfortunate in- mates to their death either by drowning or from blows of the flying timbers and wreckage that filled the air.
WIND A HUNDRED MILES AN HOUR.
The strongest wind blew later in the evening, when it shifted to the southeast and attained a velocity of from 110 to 120 miles an hour. The exact velocity was not recorded, owing to the de- struction of the wind gauge of the United States Weather Bureau after it had registered a 100-miles-an-hour blow for two minutes. This terrific southeast wind blew the sea of débris inland and piled it up in a hill ranging from ten to twenty feet high and marking the line of the storm's path along the southeastern edge of the island.
In one place near Tremont street and Avenue P four roofs and reninants of four houses are jammed within a space of about twenty-five feet square. Beneath this long ridge many hundred men, women and children were buried, and cattle, horses and dogs and other animals were piled together in one confused mass. While every house in the city or suburbs suffered more or less from the
251
THRILLING NARRATIVES BY EYE-WITNESSES.
Steele were killed. There are six houses standing. All the gro- ceries at both places were damaged by water and these people are in great need of provisions, medicines and food for stock.
One old man was found this morning who stated that he had one hundred kinfolks in Galveston and he is the only survivor.
Galveston was a place where there were large families by' intermarriage, many of which had been established when the city was but a village, fifty or more years ago. These had lived here and increased until a family of 100 was not improbable in the least. The case of this old man is probably an extreme one in the line of annihilation, but others have lost almost as lieavily.
STEAMERS TORN FROM THEIR MOORINGS.
General Agent Denison was unable to give any definite infor- mation about the movements of steamers out of Galveston. There are now three here. The Alamo is aground on the north side of the channel, having been torn from her moorings at the wharf dur- ing the storm and swept to her present position.
Mr. Denison expressed the opinion that it might be possible that dredging would be necessary to relieve the steamer. The Comal arrived in port Monday and berthed at pier 26, but was unable to discharge much cargo. She moved down into the roads Wednesday afternoon, driven there because of the stench at the wharves and the impossibility of doing any business. The Sabine arrived this morning and also anchored in the roads to await an opportunity to discharge. The wharf is in bad shape for the handling of cargo, being wet and muddy and torn up in a good many places.
There was talk of urging Governor Sayers to call a special session of the Legislature to take action to relieve the situation at Galveston. This was done by Governor Culberson in 1897 in the case of El Paso, and is said to be sanctioned by the State Constitu- tion. Representative Dudly G. Wooten, of Dallas, said :
"In regard to the necessity for a specially called session of the Legislature, it is difficult to speak intelligently unless we know all the conditions. So far as the immediate physical wants of the
255
THRILLING NARRATIVES BY EYE-WITNESSES.
There has never been in this country any other disaster to be com- pared with this. Where others have had to battle against wind or water, here the man and the woman and the child have found a dual foe-both wind and wave. Considering all the conditions and forces and dangers and dreadful results, it may be asserted without any word to modify the statement that this is the mnost grievous calamity of modern times.
TOO AWFUL FOR WORDS.
"It is a stunning blow to every Texan whose heart is in the right place. It is a calamity so dread that no one can afford to stop to consider himself or his own wounds. The duty which one owes to others comes first. Many are too far away from the scene of desolation and death to do anything ; but they are not too far away to give something, and thus to help along the heartrending work which is now going on in Galveston and in other places along the coast. The work of uncovering bodies, of burying the dead, of supplying the needs of those who require assistance, is going on, and a beginning has been made in cleaning and clearing the city to prevent a general spread of sickness, which is sure to come tin- less this work is thoroughly done. This task will require a week more, possibly many weeks more.
"The removal of huge masses of bricks, stones, timber and decaying stock in large houses which have gone down is necessar- ily a slow business, yet this difficult task must be performed before even the work of burying the dead can be completed. From the ruins of some houses of this kind scores of bodies are yet to be taken. Unless ample help is procurable this task is almost a hope- less undertaking. It is in order to repeat that it is a duty which must be performed without delay. So far Texans have responded nobly. The same may be said of people the country over. The main purpose is to keep before all the fact that the service of sym- pathy and mercy must be continued for a little while if the victims of the storm are to be saved and succored.
"As an exchange says, the elements seem to have been wreak- ing vengeance on Texas this year. In April the Colorado and
CHAPTER XIII.
Refugees Continue the Terrible Story-Rigid Military Patrol -The City in Darkness at Night-Hungry and Ragged Throngs,
P ERSONS who arrived in Dallas from Galveston not only con- firmed all that had been said before or written about the dis-
aster there, but gave more details of the horror. Each inter- view was more distressing than the one preceding it, and it seemed that even an approximate idea of the truth was yet to be given. Some accounts told of the deadly flood. Others told of the work of vandals and their speedy death at the hands of Uncle Sam's fighters, and of hunger and sickness, woe and misery.
Newt M. Smith, of Dallas, who was sent to Galveston by the local insurance men to assist in the relief of the needy brethren in that city, was one of those to return with important information.
" When we arrived in Houston we were informed that no one would be permitted on the train without a pass from Mayor Brash- ear, of Houston," he said. "We hunted the Mayor up and were told that 2000 passes had already been issued and that the train would carry only 800 people. We finally succeeded in getting on board without passes, some of the men climbing through the win- dows. Nearly all the dwellings and business houses of the sinall stations on the International and Great Northern between Houston and Galveston are either blown down or seriously damaged.
"At certain places along the railroad every telegraph pole was down for a distance of one-half or three-quarters of a mile, poles and wires being across the track. Some twelve or fifteen miles this side of the bay at one place I counted the carcasses of fourteen large cattle and horses that had drowned. Just before reaching Texas City Junction it was necessary for the passengers to abandon the train for the purpose of repairing and rebuilding a bridge across trestle which had washed away. Volunteers were called for
257
17
261
THRILLING TALES BY REFUGEES.
yell and shriek until it resembled the cry of an enraged animal. All sorts of missles were flying through the air and clattering against the walls. Cornices, section of tin and thousands of slates from the roofs were flying every way. The instinct to escape was strong among all in that depot, and it was suggested that we join hands and try to make our way up town. I told those who wanted to go that they would be killed with flying slate, and it was de- cided to stay.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.