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
All the Atlantic coast States suffered. Port Royal, S. C., was
frightfully damaged. The streets of Charleston, S. C., were literally
filled with debris, parts of roofs, signs, awnings, telegraph poles and
building material being jumbled together in an inextricable mass of
wreckage. The streets were flooded with water. All the phosphate works
were blown down or badly injured. One odd sight in the old city was a
schooner lying high and dry in a street.
One of our journals commented as follows on the storm that wrought
unparalleled damage:
“With the passage of the great hurricane out to sea over the Gulf of St.
Lawrence the most destructive chapter in the history of storm movements
in the United States was closed. Just what the total of life, property
and crop losses will be is even now not ascertainable with any sure
degree of accuracy, but that it will surpass all earlier estimates
cannot be questioned.
TIMELY WARNINGS WERE GIVEN.
“Moving into the Gulf of Mexico, just west of Florida, on Thursday,
September 6, in its week’s circuit of the United States, the hurricane
has at least caused a loss of 5000 lives and probably many more, and has
destroyed and damaged property to the extent of $15,000,000. And yet,
after its probable direction and the curve of its track were ascertained
on Friday, September 7, no great cyclonic disturbance has been more
carefully watched or the menace of its forward movement more decisively
pointed out.
“It is to be regretted that though the Friday warnings of the Weather
Bureau caused apprehensions in Galveston, few realized the extreme
gravity of the situation. The bureau, however, did its full duty, and
its subsequent warnings with respect to the passage of the cyclone over
the lakes were fully justified. The path the hurricane took between
September 6 and September 12 meteorologically was most instructive and
will unquestionably prove of great value in future forecasts. And yet it
followed the normal rule and kept on skirting an area of high barometer
that lay over the Southern States, the lakes and the Middle States. From
the moment the cyclone was first “held up” by the high pressure
anti-cyclone on Thursday it kept to the left of it, and so was diverted
westward with such disastrous results for Galveston.
“Though it may seem to some paradoxical to say so, the clear, bracing
weather of yesterday, accompanied, as it was, by the strong winds from
the south and southwest, was the hurricane’s contribution to northern
weather. To most people who find great difficulty in understanding the
twofold movement in cyclonic storms—the translation of the storm as a
whole along its track and the circulation of the winds in the whirl
itself—the idea that clear weather is part of a storm movement will seem
strange, and yet such is the case.