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

FIRES ALL OVER THE CITY.

“The number of dead under debris in the central parts of the city will never be known, as burning is going on all over the city. The east end, beginning at Fifteenth street and Avenue L, running on a line parallel with the island, has a great mass of wreckage piled as high as a man’s head and from that to the top of houses three stories high.

“This line extends as far along as there were any houses to wreck, and consists of all manner of buildings. It is a desolate scene from Eighth street east, when one compares it with the life that was present there but a short time ago. Two buildings of all the colony at the Point are left standing. These are the houses of the quarantine officer and the lighthouse. The quarantine warehouse is gone. All the barrack buildings and the dirt mounds that surrounded them are gone, and in place of all is a watery waste, with the exception of a few little islands that appear above the water.

“The water has cut into the lands from the jetties, covering all the ground practically from Seventh street east. For a block or more in the neighborhood of the hospitals there is a prairie waste, and then begins the mass of debris. One man had several houses out there and now he can find his fine porcelain tubs in the debris, while all about him are the things that composed his home and the houses he owned.

“Lucas Terrace, a large three-story brick building, divided into flats of three and four rooms each is almost a total wreck. Out of thirty-seven persons reported to have been in the building when the storm started its work of destruction, the Terrace had fifteen killed. Business concerns of the larger order in the East end suffered with the corner groceries and the smaller merchants.