The Great Galveston Disaster, Containing a Full and Thrilling Account of the Most Appalling Calamity of Modern Times Page: 419
xiv, 17-536 p. : front., plates ; 24 cm.View a full description of this book.
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WONDERFUL COURAGE OF SURVIVORS. 419
"There is a story of millions of feet being torn from it and cast
into the sea. This story may be true if applied to some part of
the island which I did not visit. But where I went it is not true.
There was erosion. That was to be expected. Erosion would
have come from a far less storm than this. I have seen a common
"rise" on the Ohio River carry away more dirt than this
storm carried from Galveston Island into the Gulf. The people
of the interior know where the old Beach Hotel stood.
" They know where the chimney of that house was built.
They know how far it was from the beach. They will understand
the work of erosion. I stated that the brick of that chimney is
not in the water. The piling on which the hotel was built are in
some places in the water. In fact, according to my observation,
the erosion at this point has not been above 300 feet. I went to
the east end of the town and to the west end of it. The destruction
of the island is no greater anywhere that I saw than at the
the location of the hotel mentioned.
PREDICTIONS OF DISASTER.
" For years and years people have said that when the right
kind of storm came the island would sink under it or be washed
away like a house of cards in a flood. It was supposed that the
great currents which would rush across the island would dig
bayous as deep as the bay. These would grow in width, and
finally the great island would be cut into small ones, if it did not
disappear beneath the waves. But the result of this greatest
storm on record ? Why, there is not, as far as I could hear, and
I made inquiries, a single excavation made from the Gulf to the
bay or the bay to the Gulf. The island stands there in all things,
except in the matter of the erosion mentioned, as stable and firm
as it has ever been since man knew it. That is enough. The
foundation is there. Man can do most any thing with a proper
foundation.
"The only need now is stable and the right kind of houses.
The old houses seem to have stood the shock better than the new
ones. The reason of this is apparent. The old ones were built
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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/m1/477/: accessed May 5, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.