The Great Galveston Disaster. Paul Lester
“The Santa Fe train which left here at 7.55 Saturday night, the 8th, was wrecked at a point about two miles north of Alvin. The train was running slowly when it encountered the heavy storm. It is reported that the train was literally lifted from the track.”
A thrilling story was told by two men who floated across from Galveston to the mainland. It came in the form of a telegram received at Dallas from Houston:
“Relief train just returned. They could not get closer than six miles of Virginia Point, where the prairie was covered with lumber, debris, pianos, trunks, and dead bodies. Two hundred corpses were counted from the train. A large steamer is stranded two miles this side of Virginia Point, as though thrown up by a tidal wave. Nothing can be seen of Galveston.
“Two men were picked up who floated across to the mainland, who say they estimate the loss of life up to the time they left at 2000.”
The above message was addressed to Superintendent Felton, Dallas, and comes from Mr. Vaughn, manager of the Western Union office at Houston. The Missouri, Kansas and Texas north bound “flyer” was reported wrecked near Sayers.
The office of the Western Union Telegraph Company at St. Louis was besieged with thousands of inquiries as to the extent and result of the terrible storm that cut off Galveston from communication with the rest of the world. Rumors of the most direful nature come from that part of Texas, some of them even intimating that Galveston had been entirely wrecked and that the bay was covered with the dead bodies of its residents. Nothing definite, however, could be learned, as the Gulf city was entirely isolated, not even railroad trains being able to reach it. All the telegraph wires to Galveston were gone south of Houston, and to accentuate the serious condition of affairs the cable lines between Galveston and Tampico and Coatzacoalcos, Mexico, were severed; at least no communication over them was possible.
The Western Union had a large number of telegraph operators and linemen waiting at Houston to go to Galveston, but it was impossible to get them there. San Antonio was being reached by El Paso, in the extreme southwestern portion of the State, a procedure made necessary by the prevailing storm.
WATER BLOWN COMPLETELY OVER THE CITY.
Mr. Joyce, another refugee from Galveston, made the following statement:
“The wind was blowing Saturday afternoon and night at about seventy-five miles an hour, blowing the water in the Gulf and completely covering the city. The people of Galveston did not think it was much at first and kept within their homes, consequently when the wind began blowing as it did and the water dashed against the houses, completely demolishing them, many lives were lost. I have no idea how many were killed, but think there will be several thousand deaths reported, besides many people whom we will know nothing about.
“I was in the storm which struck Galveston in 1875, but that one, bad as it was, was nothing in comparison with Saturday’s.”
The following account of Galveston will be of interest to readers in connection with the great disaster that has ruined that once prosperous and thriving city.
Galveston is situated on an island extending east and west for twenty seven miles, and is seven miles in its greatest width north and south. No city could be in greater danger from such a horrible visitation as has now come to Galveston. In no part of the city, with its former 38,000 population, is it more than six feet above the sea level.
The flat condition not only points to the desperate situation of the people at such a time as this, but their danger may be considered emphasized when it is known that exactly where the city is built the island is only one and one-quarter miles wide.
On the bay, or north side of the city, is the commercial section, with wharves stretching along for nearly two miles, lined with sheds and large storage houses. Then, in that portion of Galveston, there are three elevators, one of 1,500,000 bushels capacity, one of 1,000,000 and the third of 750,000.
A BRIDGE TWO MILES LONG.
The island from the north side is connected with the mainland by railroad bridges and the longest wagon bridge in the world, the latter nearly two miles in length. In 1872 the entire east end of the city was swept away by the tidal wave that followed a terrific storm that swept the Gulf coast for three days. Then the eastern land, on which buildings stood, was literally torn away. The work of replacing it has since been going on, and Fort Point, that guards the entrance to the harbor, has since been built, and on its parapets are mounted some of the heaviest coast defense ordnance used by the government. By the force of the storm of 1872 six entire blocks of the city were swept away.
It is on the south side of the city, beginning within fifty yards of the medium Gulf tide, that the wealthy residence portion of the city is located, and which was the first part of Galveston to be stricken by the full force of the storm and flood. All of the eastern end of the city was washed away, and in this quarter, between Broadway and I street, some of the handsomest and most expensive residence establishments are located. There was located there one home, which alone cost the owner over $1,000,000. Most of the residences are of frame, but there are many of stone and brick. In the extreme eastern end of the city there are many of what we call raised cottages. They are built on piling, and stand from eight to ten feet from the ground as a precaution against floods, it being possible for the water to sweep under them.
Any protection that has ever been provided for the Gulf side of the city has been two stone breakwaters, but many times, with ordinary storms coming in from the Gulf, the high tidewater has been hurled over the low stone walls right to the very doors of the residences. From Virginia Point, six miles from Galveston, in ordinary conditions of the atmosphere, the city can be plainly seen. If it is true that Galveston cannot be now seen from the Point, then the conditions of the people in the city must be indescribably horrible. In short, a large part of the city is obliterated and has disappeared.
VAST AMOUNT OF MONEY INVESTED.
Many millions of dollars are invested in the wholesale and retail business of the city. On Strand street alone there are ten blocks of business establishments that represent an invested capital of $127,000,000. Market street is the heavy retail street, and there, in the heart of the flooded district, the losses cannot but reach away into the millions. The fact, as indicated by the despatches, that water is standing six feet deep in the Tremont Hotel, furnishes startling evidence to me that Galveston has been, indeed, dreadfully visited. The hotel is in almost exactly the centre of the city. Two years ago Galveston did the heaviest shipping business in cotton and grain of any Southern city. When I was at home two shiploads of cattle were leaving the port on an average every week.
Dr. H. C. Frankenfeld, forecast official of the Weather Bureau, gave an account of the West India hurricane that travelled through Texas. The first sign of the storm was noticed August 30 near the Windward Islands, about latitude 15 degrees north, longitude 63 degrees west. On the morning of August 31 it was still in the same latitude, but had moved westward to about longitude 67 degrees, or about 200 miles south of the island of Porto Rico. At that time, however, it had not assumed a very definite storm formation. It was central in the Caribbean Sea on the morning of September 1st, evidently about two hundred miles south of Santo Domingo City.
It had reached a point somewhere to the southwest, and not very far from Jamaica, by September 2d. The morning of September 3d found it about 175 miles south of the middle of Cuba. It had moved northwestward to latitude