The Great Galveston Disaster: Containing a Full and Thrilling Account of the Most Appalling Calamity of Modern Times Including Vivid Descriptions of the Hurricane and Terrible Rush of Waters; Immense Destruction of Dwellings, Business Houses, Churches, and Loss of Thousands of Human Lives; Thrilling Tales of Heroic Deeds; Panic-Stricken Multitudes and Heart-Rending Scenes of Agony; Frantic Efforts to Escape a Horrible Fate; Separation of Loved Ones, etc., etc.; Narrow Escapes from the Jaws of De — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The Great Galveston Disaster: Containing a Full and Thrilling Account of the Most Appalling Calamity of Modern Times Including Vivid Descriptions of the Hurricane and Terrible Rush of Waters; Immense Destruction of Dwellings, Business Houses, Churches, and Loss of Thousands of Human Lives; Thrilling Tales of Heroic Deeds; Panic-Stricken Multitudes and Heart-Rending Scenes of Agony; Frantic Efforts to Escape a Horrible Fate; Separation of Loved Ones, etc., etc.; Narrow Escapes from the Jaws of De
John Stuart Mill · en
Such a fate as an inundation during the prevalence of a hurricane has
been forecast for the island city, whose population according to the new
census is 37,789, many of whom live under conditions that invite loss of
life in case of a tidal overflow. And yet, though such a disaster has
been foreseen and forecast, the inertia of one’s adherence to normal
life and duties is such that even in the face of specific warning it is
not likely any number would flee to the mainland. On September 8th, for
instance, the Weather Bureau, which had not lost track of the storm,
very correctly pointed out that the hurricane was moving northwestward
slowly, towards the Texas coast, Port Eads, La., giving a wind velocity
of fifty-six miles an hour. Storm warnings were ordered for the eastern
Texas and middle Gulf region, and high winds were specifically forecast
for the coast of eastern Texas. More the Bureau could not do, but it
looks as if its warnings were in vain.
THE FATEFUL WINDS GATHERING FORCE.
Unfortunately for Galveston, the slow movement of the hurricane was an
additional menace, since this meant the longer pounding of the vertical
winds of high velocities. As most readers know, the hurricane is a storm
which has two entirely distinct motions. It is a great cyclonic whirl in
which the winds blow into and about the centre at great velocities,
while its motion along its track may be comparatively slow.
In the present case it took the hurricane four days to cross the Gulf
from Key West to Galveston, which was at a rate of about twelve and
one-half miles an hour. Its rotary winds, however, even a hundred miles
from the centre on Friday, were raging at a rate of over fifty miles,
and as the vortex passed directly and slowly over Galveston, the
buffeting of the winds beginning on Friday evening and continuing far
into Saturday, must have been terrific. Moreover, as the whole of
Galveston is built up of frame houses without cellars on uncertain
foundations, the evil possibilities must be obvious.
CHAPTER II.
The Tale of Destruction Grows—A Night of Horrors—Sufferings of the
Survivors—Relief Measures by the National Government.
The following graphic account of the terrible disaster is from the pen
of an eye-witness, written within twenty-four hours after the city was
struck by the hurricane: “No direct wire communication has been
established between Dallas and Galveston, and such a connection is not
likely to be established earlier than to-morrow. The gulf coast, back
for a distance of approximately twenty miles, is one vast marsh, and in
many places the water is from three to ten feet deep, making progress
toward the stricken city slow and unremunerative in the matter of direct
news.