“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 masses of wreckage, and in these great piles are to be found more human bodies and household furniture of every description. “The waters of the Gulf and the winds spared no one who was exposed. Whirling houses around in its grasp the wind piled their shattered frames high in confusing masses and dumped their contents on top. Men and women were thrown around like so many logs of wood. ALL SUFFERED INJURY. “I believe that with the very best exertions of the men it will require weeks to obtain some semblance of physical order in the city, and it is doubtful if even then all the debris will be disposed of. “There is hardly a family on the island whose household has not lost a member or more, and in some instances entire families have been washed away or killed. “Hundreds who escaped from the waves did so only to become the victims of a worse death, being crushed by falling buildings. “Down in the business section of the city the foundations of great buildings have given way, carrying towering structures to their ruin. These ruins, falling across the streets, formed barricades on which gathered all the floating debris and many human bodies. Many of these bodies were stripped of their clothing. “Some of the most conservative men on the island place the loss of human beings at not less than 7500 and possibly 10,000. The live stock on the island has been completely annihilated. “I consider that every interest on the island has suffered. Not one has escaped. From the great dock company to the humblest individual the loss has been felt and in many instances it is irreparable. In cases where houses have been left standing the contents are more or less damaged, but in the large majority of cases the houses themselves did not escape injury.” At fifteen minutes to four o’clock in the afternoon of Thursday the 13th, for the first time since Saturday afternoon at twenty-six minutes after four o’clock, Galveston was in telegraphic communication with the outside world, although not open for business completely.