The Great Galveston Disaster, Containing a Full and Thrilling Account of the Most Appalling Calamity of Modern Times Page: 34
xiv, 17-536 p. : front., plates ; 24 cm.View a full description of this book.
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fi, AN .N'1^,0'54 A NIG'T 1 lOR()11R1S.
rose steadily from dark until 1.45 o'clock Sunlday morning. During
all this time the people eof (Galveston were like rats in a trap. The
highest portion of the city was four to five feet under x ater, while
in the great majority of ca;es tlhe streets were sutbmlerged to a
depth of ten feet. To leave a house was to drown. To remain
was to court deattl in tlle wreckage.
Such a Ilight of agonly lias seldom been equaled. Without
apparent reason tle waters stluddenlly begall to subside at 1.45 A. M.
Within twenty minutes tleiy had gone down two feet, and before
daylight tle streets were practically feed of tl1e flood-waters. In
the meantime the wind had veered to tlhe southeast.
VERY FEW BUILDINGS ESCAPED.
c Very few if any buildings escaped iljulry. There is hardly
a habitable dry house in tlle city. \When tlhe people who had
escaped death went out at (ltaylighut to view tlhe work of the tempest
and floods they saw the most horrible sights imaginable. In the
three blocks from Avenue N to Avenue ), in Tremont street, I saw
eight bodies. Four corpses were in one yard.
The whole of tlhe business front for three blocks in from tlhe
Gulf was stripped of every vestige of hablitation, tlhe dwellings, the
great bathing establishments, thle l()ISlpia and every structure
having been either carried out to sea or its ruins piled in a pyramid
far into the town, according to the vagaries of the tempest. The
first hurried glance over the city showed that the largest structures,
supposed to be the most substantially built, suffered the greatest.
"The Orphans' Home, Twenty-first street and Avenue M1, fell
like a house of cards. How many dead children and refugees are
in the ruins could not be ascertained. Of the sick in St. Mary's
Infirmary, together with the attendants, only eight are understood
to have been saved. The Old Woman's Home, on Roosenburg
aveue, collapsed, and the Roosenburg School-house is a mass of
wreckage. The Ball High School is but an empty shell, crushed
and broken. Every church in the city, with possibly one or two(
exceptions, is in ruins.
"At the forts nearly all the soldiers are reported dead, they
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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/m1/45/?rotate=90: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.