The Great Galveston Disaster. Paul Lester
are inspired with the sentiment that Galveston must rally, must survive and must fulfill a glorious destiny, as the great entry port of the Southwest. As in the case of the great Johnstown disaster, in 1889, the whole American people have responded with alacrity to their cries for help, and with such aid to assist and such sympathy to inspire them, they will surely meet the success that their patriotic efforts so richly merit.
“A. H. Belo.”
STORY OF DEATH AND RUIN.
Reviewing the situation it may be said that again were heard the cries of those in the wilderness of devastation asking for succor, for again, as a score of times before, Galveston and surrounding coast towns are the scenes of death and desolation. Homes razed and washed away by the waters that have claimed their occupants as victims of death and horror, has more than once been the story from the shores of the Gulf.
History is now repeating itself, and the repetition has become frequent since 1860. While severe storms sweep the Atlantic coast between the mouth of the Savannah River and the Chesapeake, still the resultant damage is far less north of Savannah and the Cape Fear River. This is because the land is higher, serving as a barrier to the encroachments of the sea, while the further south one goes, it will be found, the land is lower, increasing the liability of becoming submerged by heavy inshore winds and tidal waves.
Florida, Louisiana and Texas coast cities are but a few feet above high tide register and therefore the more subject to overflow. To compute the total loss of life and property from the storms which from time to time have devastated the coast of the Gulf of Mexico it would be found the loss of human life would extend well into the thousands, while tens of millions of dollars have been laid waste.
STORMS THAT BROUGHT DESOLATION.
There have been many such storms before whose fury has been felt by the coast people. One of the worst storms was in September, 1860, which caused ruin and death from Rio Grande to Mobile, and when the waters had subsided the loss could be figured at $3,000,000.
Then in October of the same year, one month later, another storm swept down upon Galveston and Houston, and $5,000,000 had been wiped out. There were other storms of less violence, as, for instance, in June, 1891, when a southeast wind blew a hurricane for four days and the city was inundated and shipping was seriously crippled.
There was another fearful visitation on September 17, 1875. A good part of the city was under water several feet deep. Vessels were wrecked and the City Hospital was filled with water and the Ocean House, on Gulf Beach, crumbled and fell and floated away in remnants. Thirty lives were lost. It was the hardest storm since 1867 up to that time. The storm raged for several days.
Indianola, one hundred and twenty miles southwest of Galveston, was almost totally destroyed. More than one hundred and fifty of its inhabitants were found dead in the ruins of their homes. Nearly all of its three thousand houses were unroofed or badly damaged, and $7,000,000 in money has gone to waste.
A hurricane on the lower Texas coast and in Mexico on August 20, 1880, carried destruction far and wide. As many as three hundred houses in Matamoras, Mexico, were demolished, even brick buildings offering no more resistance than so many toys. Brownsville, Texas, saw its houses unroofed and the infantry barracks were demolished, and twenty-eight army horses and several mules were killed. A convent did not escape damage, and several of the occupants were injured by falling debris.
The railroads, quarantine stations and the lighthouses were seriously damaged. Thirty lives were lost and property damaged was estimated at $1,000,000. This hurricane was followed by one of equal violence on the Mexican coast, which completely wiped out the town of Altata and the port of that name. Not one house was left standing and ships in the harbor suffered greatly.
ATLANTIC COAST ALSO SWEPT.
Savannah, Ga., has not escaped the fury of the southern gale. The city suffered severely in 1881, the waters rushing into the streets and causing the death of four hundred persons by drowning. Four million dollars, it was said, was the amount of the damage to property. In 1893 Savannah was visited by another cyclone and forty persons were killed. This time the property damage was $7,000.000.
Havana, Cuba, and the West Indies were visited by a destructive hurricane in September, 1888. One thousand persons were killed and hundreds of head of cattle were killed. The loss was $7,000,000.
Sabine Pass, which is the dividing line between Texas and Louisiana, was swept by a terrific storm in October, 1886. The population of the town was about four hundred. Of these one hundred and twenty-six perished and 90 per cent. of the deaths was caused by drowning. Four houses escaped injury.
The coast of Mexico was devastated for three days in the fall of 1889 by a destructive cyclone, which first struck the coast of Campeachy. There was a drenching rain which played havoc along the peninsula for miles. The wind was so furious in the city of Carmen it uprooted trees, depositing them upon houses which they crushed. All the shipping in the harbor was wrecked. Twelve foreign barks were wrecked. Some were thrown high and dry on the beach, while others were submerged. Two steamships, many schooners and many smaller craft were wrecked. There was great loss of life.
A hurricane from the West Indies, which swept up the Atlantic coast, did great damage to Savannah, Ga., on Tuesday, September 30, 1896. Wind blew at a velocity of seventy-five miles an hour for an hour and a half. Hardly a building escaped, and thousands of houses were unroofed. The damage was $1,000,000, and twenty-two persons were killed. The roof of the United States Pension Office was blown off. Railroad stations, churches, theatres and the Bonaventure Cemetery were ruined, monuments being overturned.
The hurricane started from the West Indies. It went from Brunswick, Ga., to Savannah; thence it plunged through and into Pennsylvania, where the damage done was tremendous. The large railroad bridge over the Susquehanna River was wrecked.
HARDEST STORM FOR MANY YEARS.
One of the worst cyclonic storms of recent years was that on August 29, 1893, which carried havoc and destruction even into our own city, although this city escaped its utmost fury, although there came tales of shipwrecks at sea. It was a West Indian hurricane that originated in the West Indies on August 25, and reached our shores at Savannah, Ga., two days later. The storm passed through North and South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia and into the southwestern part of Pennsylvania.
All the Atlantic coast States suffered. Port Royal, S. C., was frightfully damaged. The streets of Charleston, S. C., were literally filled with debris, parts of roofs, signs, awnings, telegraph poles and building material being jumbled together in an inextricable mass of wreckage. The streets were flooded with water. All the phosphate works were blown down or badly injured. One odd sight in the old city was a schooner lying high and dry in a street.
One of our journals commented as follows on the storm that wrought unparalleled damage:
“With the passage of the great hurricane out to sea over the Gulf of St. Lawrence the most destructive chapter in the history of storm movements in the United States was closed. Just what the total of life, property and crop losses will be is even now not ascertainable with any sure degree of accuracy, but that it will surpass all earlier estimates cannot be questioned.
TIMELY WARNINGS WERE GIVEN.