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 Death; Terrible Sufferings of the Survivors; Vandals Plundering Bodies of the Dead; Wonderful Exhibitions of Popular Sympathy; Millions of Dollars Sent for the Relief of the Stricken Sufferers

by Paul Lester

CLASPED HANDS AND ESCAPED.

Encircling a water stand pipe with clasped hands, W. R. Jones and fifteen other men prevented themselves from being carried away by the water, and so saved their lives at Galveston.

In a wooden bathtub Mrs. Chapman Bailey and Miss Blanche Kennedy were carried out into the gulf, where they spent Saturday night. Not till the next morning did the tide bring them back to where the rescuing parties could reach them. Neither of them has a relative in Galveston left alive.

Captain John Delaney, chief customs inspector of the port of Galveston, is one of the courageous men of the town. He lost his entire family, wife, son and daughters, but his sixty years were not bowed by his fate. The day following the disaster he was at his post, attired in a suit of overalls, the only clothing he had saved from the wreck of his home, and he has inspected all the vessels that have arrived since then.

Along the Galveston wharf front the storm was particularly violent. The big steel tank of the Waters-Pierce Oil Company, in which was stored during the season cotton seed oil, at the foot of Fifteenth street, was blown to Twenty-first street, a distance of six blocks. It landed on its bottom and rests now in an upright position. It is a large tank and heavy, but the elements got the better of it.