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

DIFFICULTIES OF A TRAIN.

“After a considerable delay the train started on. At West La Porte we found the depot blown across our way. All went to work cutting and moving timbers, and with the assistance of the wind, we soon had the track clear. We now had but one more serious place to get across before we could get to Seabrook. At last we reached it, and were in a few minutes across Taylor’s bayou, which we found to be a half mile wide and the waves four feet high. This bayou, in ordinary weather, is about fifty feet wide. On reaching Seabrook we found the depot full of refugees, houses all gone, water over everything. Some of the families of our companions on the way were lost, never to be seen alive again.

“Here we started out to work in earnest and it was only a very short time before we had everyone that was without a home on board. By this time the train crew had fires in the coaches and we served coffee, cheese and bread to the hungry ones, and made them as comfortable as possible. We still had lots of work to do, though, and we were looking for it when a man appeared on the scene, reporting Judge Tod’s barn had blown down on two ladies and several children. We went to work to get them out, and after three hours’ work we rescued all alive except the mother. She probably could have saved herself, but she gave up her life for the children. She was found in a position leaning over them, protecting them.

“Finally day came and we could now see what damage the storm had done. Mr. Hamilton’s house was the only one left in the flats, and most of the houses on the ridge were blown to pieces. It was a miracle that more lives were not lost.

“We gathered up everyone who wanted to come and left for Houston at 9.30 A. M. Sunday, and arrived at Houston about 12 o’clock; our journey lasting eighteen hours, was over. The gentlemen on the train who had families at La Porte and Seabrook are under lasting obligations to the Southern Pacific officials and especially to the train crew. No braver crew ever went out with a train, and we wish to tender them our earnest and sincere thanks. Courage and manly conduct have always been lauded by the world, and no men ever stood more nobly to duty on battle grounds than did these men who ran the relief train in the full fury of the storm to the search for the wave-tossed people of La Porte and Seabrook.”

As showing the immediate demand for laborers, the following advertisement inserted in the “Houston Post,” will be of interest: