The Great Galveston Disaster, Containing a Full and Thrilling Account of the Most Appalling Calamity of Modern Times Page: 87
xiv, 17-536 p. : front., plates ; 24 cm.View a full description of this book.
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THE GULF CITY A MASS OF RUINS. 87
time to come. Fully seventy-five per cent. of the business portion
of the town is irreparably wrecked, and the same per cent. of damage
is to be found in the residence district.
" Along the wharf front great ocean steamships have bodily
bumped themselves on to the big piers and lie there, great masses
of iron and wjod that even fire cannot totally destroy.
"The great warehouses along the water front are smashed in
on one side, unroofed and shattered throughout their length, the
contents either piled in heaps on the wharves or on the streets.
Small tugs and sailboats have jammed themselves half into buildings,
where they were landed by the incoming waves and left by
the receding waters. Houses are packed and jammed in great
confusing masses in all of the streets.
BODIES PILED IN THE STREETS.
"Great piles of human bodies, dead animals, rotting vegetation,
household furniture and fragments of the houses themselves are
piled in confused heaps right in the main streets of the city. Along
the Gulf front human bodies are floating around like cordwood.
Intermingled with them are to be found the carcasses of horses,
chickens, dogs and rotting vegetable matter.
"Along the Strand, adjacent to the Gulf front, where are
located all the big wholesale warehouses and stores, the situation
almost defies description. Great stores of fresh vegetation have
been invaded by the incoming waters and are now turned into garbage
piles of most defouling odors.' The Gulf waters, while on
the land, played at will with everything, smashing in doors of
stores, depositing bodies of human beings and animals where they
pleased and then receded, leaving the wreckage to tell its own tale
of how the work had been done. As a result the great houses are
tombs wherein are to be found the bodies of human beings and
carcasses almost defying the efforts of relief parties.
"In the piles of debris along the street, in the water and
scattered throughout the residence portion of the city, are passes
of wreckage, and in these great piles are to be found more human
bodies and household furniture of every description.
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The Great Galveston Disaster, Containing a Full and Thrilling Account of the Most Appalling Calamity of Modern Times (Book)
This book covers the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, the United States' deadliest natural disaster. It includes accounts from survivors and eyewitnesses, and photos of the devastation.
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Lester, Paul. The Great Galveston Disaster, Containing a Full and Thrilling Account of the Most Appalling Calamity of Modern Times, book, 1900~; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth26719/m1/108/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.