by Tom McCarthy
Fully seven hundred people were congregated at the city hall, most of them more or less injured in various ways. One man from Lucas Terrace reported the loss of fifty lives in the building from which he escaped. He himself was severely injured about the head.
Passing along Tremont Street, out as far as Avenue P, climbing over the piles of lumber which had once been residences, four bodies were observed in one yard and seven in one room in another place, while as many as sixty corpses were seen lying singly and in groups in the space of one block. A majority of the drowned, however, were under the ruined houses. The body of Miss Sarah Summers was found near her home, corner of Tremont Street and Avenue F, her lips smiling, but her features set in death, her hands grasping her diamonds tightly. The remains of her sister, Mrs. Claude Fordtran, were never found.
The report from St. Mary’s Infirmary showed that only eight persons escaped from that hospital. The number of patients and nurses was one hundred. Rosenberg Schoolhouse, chosen as a place of refuge by the people of that locality, collapsed. Few of those who had taken refuge there escaped—how many cannot be told and will never be known.
Never before had the Sabbath sun risen upon such a sight, and as though unable to endure it, the god of the day soon veiled his face behind dull and leaden clouds and refused to shine.
Surely it was enough to draw tears even from inanimate things.
At the Union Depot, Baggage Master Harding picked up the lifeless form of a baby girl within a few feet of the station. Its parents were among the lost. The station building was selected as a place of refuge by hundreds of people, and although all the windows and a portion of the south wall at the top were blown in and the occupants expected every moment to be their last, escape was impossible, for about the building the water was fully twelve feet deep. A couple of small shanties were floating about, but there was no means of making a raft or getting a boat.
Every available building in the city was used as a hospital. As for the dead, they were being put away anywhere. In one large grocery store on Tremont Street, all the space that could be cleared was occupied by the wounded.
It was nothing strange to see the dead and crippled everywhere, and the living were so fascinated by the dead they could hardly be dragged away from the spots where the corpses were piled. There were dead by the score, by the hundreds, and by the thousands. It was a city of the dead, a vast battlefield, the slain being victims of flood and gale. The dead were at rest, but the living had to suffer, for no aid was at hand.
In the business portion of the town, the damage could not be even approximately estimated. The wholesale houses along the Strand had about seven feet of water on their ground floors, and all window panes and glass protectors of all kinds were demolished.
On Mechanic Street the water was almost as deep as on the Strand. All provisions in the wholesale groceries and goods on the lower floors were saturated and rendered valueless.
In clearing away the ruins of the Catholic Orphans’ Home, heartrending evidence of the heroism and love of the sisters was discovered. Bodies of the little folks were found which indicated by their position that heroic measures were taken to keep them together so that all might be saved. The sisters had tied them together in bunches of eight and then tied the cords around their own waists. In this way they probably hoped to quiet the children’s fears and lead them to safety. The storm struck the home with such terrific force that the structure fell, carrying the inmates with it and burying them under tons of debris. Two crowds of children, tied and attached to sisters, have been found. In one heap the children were piled on the sisters, and the arms of one little girl were clasped around a sister’s neck. In the wreck of the home, over ninety children and sisters were killed. It was first believed that they had been washed out to sea, but the discovery of the little groups in the ruins indicates that all were killed and buried under the wreckage.
Sunday and Monday were days of the greatest suffering, although the population had hardly sufficiently recovered from the shock of the mighty calamity to realize that they were hungry and cold. On Monday all relief trains sent from other cities toward Galveston were forced to turn back, the tracks being washed away. On Tuesday Mayor Jones of Galveston sent out the following appeal to the country:
It is my opinion, based on personal information, that five thousand people have lost their lives here. Approximately one-third of the residence portion of the city has been swept away. There are several thousand people who are homeless and destitute—how many there is no way of finding out. Arrangements are now being made to have the women and children sent to Houston and other places, but the means of transportation are limited. Thousands are still to be cared for here. We appeal to you for immediate aid.
WALTER J. JONES,
Mayor of Galveston
Some relief had been sent in, the railroad to Texas City, six miles away, having been repaired, boats taking the supplies from that point into Galveston.
Food and women’s clothing were the things most needed just then. While the men could get along with the clothes they had on and what they had secured since Sunday, the women suffered considerably, and there was much sickness among them in consequence. It was noticeable, however, that the women of the city had, by their example, been instrumental in reviving the drooping spirits of the men. There was a better feeling prevalent Tuesday among the inhabitants, as news had been received that, within a few days, the acute distress would be over, except in the matter of shelter. Every house standing was damp and unhealthy, and some of the wounded were not getting along as well as hoped. Many of the injured had been sent out of town to Texas City, Houston, and other places, but hundreds still remained. It would have endangered their lives to move them.
The following order was posted on the streets at noon of Tuesday:
To the Public: The city of Galveston being under martial law and all good citizens being now enrolled in some branch of the public service, it becomes necessary, to preserve the peace, that all arms in this city be placed in the hands of the military. All good citizens are forbidden to carry arms, except by written permission from the mayor or chief of police or the major commanding. All good citizens are hereby commanded to deliver all arms and ammunition to the city and take Major Faylings’s receipt.
WALTER C. JONES, Mayor
Starting as soon as the water began to recede Sunday morning, a relief party began the work of rescuing the wounded and dying from the ruins of their homes. The scenes presented were almost beyond description. Screaming women, bruised and bleeding, some of them bearing the lifeless forms of children in their arms; men, brokenhearted and sobbing, bewailing the loss of their wives and children; streets filled with floating rubbish, among which there were many bodies of the victims of the storm, constituted part of the awful picture. In every direction, as far as the eye could reach, the scene of desolation and destruction continued.
It was certainly enough to cause the stoutest heart to quail and grow sick, and yet the searchers well knew they could not unveil one-hundredth part of the misery the destructive elements had brought about. They knew, also, that the full import and heaviness of the blow could not be realized for days to come.
Although those in the relief party were prepared to see the natural evidences following upon the heels of the mighty storm, they did not anticipate such frightful revelations. It was a butchery without precedent, a gathering of victims that was so ghastly as to be beyond the power of any man to picture.
As the party went on, the members met others who made reports of things that had come under their notice. There were fifty killed or drowned in one section of town, one hundred in another, five hundred in another. The list grew larger with each report.
It was a matter of wonder, and increasing wonder, too, that a single soul escaped to tell the tale. No one seemed entirely sane, for there was madness in the very air. All moved in an atmosphere of gloom;
it was difficult to move and breathe with so much death on all sides. Yet no one could keep his eyes off of those horrible, fascinating corpses. They riveted the gaze. Life and death were often so closely intermingled they could not be told apart. It was the apotheosis of the frightful.
Those who had escaped the hurricane and flood were searching for missing dear ones in such a listless way as to irresistibly convey the idea that they did not care whether they found them or not. It was the languor of hopelessness and despair. Some of those who had lost their all were even merry, but it was the glee of insanity.
As Sunday morning dawned, the streets were lined with people, half-clad, crippled in every conceivable manner, hobbling as best they could to where they could receive attention of physicians for themselves and summon aid for friends and relatives who could not move.
Police Officer John Bowie, who had recently been awarded a prize as the most popular officer in the city, was in a pitiable condition; the toes on both of his feet were broken, two ribs caved in, and his head badly bruised, but his own condition, he said, was nothing. “My house, with wife and children, is in the gulf. I have not a thing on earth for which to live.”
The houses of all prominent citizens which escaped destruction were turned into hospitals, as were also the leading hotels. There was scarcely one of the houses left standing which did not contain one or more of the dead as well as many injured.
The rain began to pour down in torrents, and the party went back down Tremont Street toward the city. The misery of the poor people, all mangled and hurt, pressing to the city for medical attention, was greatly augmented by this rain. Stopping at a small grocery store to avoid the rain, the party found it packed with injured. The provisions in the store had been ruined, and there was nothing for the numerous customers who came hungry and tired. The place was a hospital, no longer a store.
Farther down the street a restaurant, which had been submerged by water, was serving out soggy crackers and cheese to the hungry crowd. That was all that was left. The food was soaked full of water, and the people who were fortunate enough to get those sandwiches were hungry and made no complaint.
It was hard to determine what section of the city suffered the greatest damage and loss of life. Information from both the extreme eastern and extreme western portions of the city was difficult to obtain at that time. In fact, it was nearly impossible, but the reports received indicated that those two sections had suffered the same fate as the rest of the city and to a greater degree. Thus the relief party wended its way through streets which, but a few hours before, were teeming with life. Now they were the thoroughfares of death. It did not seem as if they could ever resound to the throb of quickened vitality again. It seemed as though it would take years to even remove the wreckage. As to rebuilding, it appeared as the work of ages. Annihilation was everywhere.
As marked out on the charts of the United States Weather Bureau at Washington, the storm which struck Galveston had a peculiar course. It was first definitely located south by east of San Domingo, and the last day of August, the center of the disturbance was approximately at a point fixed at 14 degrees north latitude and 68 degrees west longitude. From there it made a course almost due northeast, passing through Kingston, Jamaica, and if it had continued on this same line, it would have struck Galveston just the same but somewhat earlier than it did. The storm apparently was headed for Galveston all the time, but on Tuesday of last week, when almost due south of Cienfuegos, Cuba, it changed its course so as to go almost due north, across the island of Cuba, through the toe of the Florida peninsula, and up the coast to the vicinity of Tampa. Here the storm made another sharp turn to the westward and headed again almost straight for Galveston.
It was this sharp turn to the westward which could not be anticipated, so the Weather Bureau sent out its hurricane signals both for the Atlantic and the gulf coast, well understanding that the prediction as to one of these coasts would certainly fail. As soon as the storm turned westward from below Tampa, the Weather Bureau knew the Atlantic coast was safe and turned its attention toward the gulf.
The people of Galveston had abundant warning of the coming of the hurricane but, of course, could not anticipate the destructive energy it would gain on the way across the Gulf of Mexico.
The Weather Bureau was informed that the first sign of the disturbance was noticed on August 30 near the Windward Islands. On August 31 it still was in the same neighborhood. The storm did not develop any hurricane features during its slow passage through the Caribbean Sea and across Cuba but was accompanied by tremendous rains. During the first twelve hours of September 3, in Santiago, Cuba, 10.50 inches of rain fell, and 2.80 inches fell in the next twelve. On September 4 the rainfall during twelve hours in Santiago was 4.44 inches, or a total fall in thirty-six hours of 17.20 inches. There were some high winds in Cuba the night of September 4.
By the morning of the 6th, the storm center was a short distance northwest of Key West, Florida, and the high winds had commenced over southern Florida, forty-eight miles an hour from the east being reported from Jupiter and forty miles from the northeast from Key West. During the 6th barometric conditions over the eastern portion of the United States so far changed as to prevent the movement of the storm along the Atlantic coast, and it, therefore, continued northwest over the Gulf of Mexico.
On the morning of the 7th, it apparently was central south of the Louisiana coast, about longitude 89, latitude 28. At this time storm signals were ordered up on the north Texas coast and during the day were extended along the entire coast. On the morning of the 8th, the storm was nearing the Texas coast and was apparently central at about latitude 28, longitude 94.
Galveston’s disastrous storm was predicted with startling accuracy by the weather prophet, Prof. Andrew Jackson DeVoe. In the Ladies’ Birthday Almanac, issued from Chattanooga, Tennessee, in January, 1900, Prof. DeVoe forecasts the weather for the following month of September as follows:
This will be a hot dry month over the northern states but plenty of rain over the Atlantic coast states. First and second days hot and sultry. Third and fourth heavy storms over the extreme northwestern states, causing thunderstorms over the Missouri Valley and showery, rainy weather over the whole country from 5th to 8th.
On the 9th a great cyclone will form over the Gulf of Mexico and move up the Atlantic coast, causing very heavy rains from Florida to Maine from 10th to 12th.
Houston was the great rendezvous for supplies sent to Galveston, and they poured in there by the carload, beginning with Tuesday. The response to the appeal for aid by the people of Galveston, on the part of the United States and, in fact, every country in the world, was prompt and generous.
That relief was an absolute necessity was made apparent from the appearance of the refugees who began to flock into Houston as soon as the boats began to run to Galveston after the catastrophe. In addition to these, thousands of strangers arrived also, and the Houston authorities were at a loss as to what to do with them. Some of these visitors were from points far distant, who had relatives in the storm-stricken district and had come to learn the worst regarding them; others there were who had come to volunteer their services in the relief work, but the greatest number consisted of curious sightseers, almost frantic in their efforts to get to the stricken city and feed their eyes on the sickening, repulsive, and disease-breeding scenes. In addition there were hundreds of the sufferers themselves, who had been brought out of their misery to be cared for here.
The question of caring for these crowds came up at a mass meeting of the Houston general relief committee held Monday. Every incoming train brought scores more of people, and immediate action was necessary. It was decided finally to pitch tents in Emancipation Park, and there as many of the strangers as possible were cared for. The hotels could not accommodate one-tenth of them.
First attention, naturally, was given the survivors of the storm. Mayor Brashear sent word to
Mayor Jones of Galveston that all persons, no matter who they were, rich or poor, ill or well, should be sent to Houston as soon as possible. They would be well provided for, he said. The urgency of his message for the depopulation of Galveston, he explained, was that, until sanitation could be restored in the wrecked city, everybody possible should be sent away.
It was estimated that nearly one thousand of the unfortunate survivors were sent to Houston on Tuesday from Galveston in response to Mayor Brashear’s request. Every building in Houston at all habitable was opened to them, and all the seriously ill comfortably housed. The others were made as comfortable as possible, but it was not only food and clothing that was wanted; the only relief some of them sought could not be furnished. They were grieving for lost ones left behind—fathers, mothers, sisters, wives, and children. Nearly everybody had some relative missing, but few of them were certain whether they were dead or alive. All, however, were satisfied that they were dead.
Men, bareheaded and barefooted, with sunken cheeks and hollow eyes; women and children with tattered clothing and bruised arms and faces; and mere infants with bare feet bruised and swollen were among the crowds seen on the streets of Houston. Women of wealth and refinement, with hatless heads and gowns of rich material torn into shreds, were among the refugees. At times a man and his wife, and sometimes with one or two children, could be seen together, but such sights were infrequent, for nearly all who went to Houston had suffered the loss of one or more of their loved ones.
But with all this suffering, there was a marvelous amount of heroism shown. A week before most of these people had happy homes, and their families were around them. The Tuesday following the disaster, they were homeless, penniless, and with nothing to look forward to. Yet there was scarcely any whimpering or complaining. They walked about the streets as if in a trance; they accepted the assistance offered them with heartfelt thanks and apparently were greatly relieved at being away from the scenes of sorrow and woe at home. They were all made to feel at home in Houston, that they were welcome, and that everything in the power of the people of Houston would be done for their comfort and welfare, and yet they seemed not to understand half that was said to them.
