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

FREAKS OF THE HURRICANE.

“Then the behavior of the storm with reference to its movements becomes almost fantastic. It was as if its controlling spirit had received a notice of the warning that had preceded it and the preparations of commerce to defend itself from its attacks. Therefore it made a feint demonstration upon the Atlantic Ocean, and suddenly turning fairly about in its course flew westward out of barometric supervision to seek a more vulnerable spot. Galveston was open to it, and sweeping across the gulf, from which no herald of warning could hasten in advance, it struck the Texas coast on Saturday and went howling with demoniac fury over the Mississippi plateau, across the lakes and down the St. Lawrence Valley out to sea again, to be chilled to death in the frigid air currents of the polar seas.

“When the West India Islands and the ports of Mexico are equipped with weather observing stations from which prompt and frequent reports shall be made, no storm can draw nigh on shores to effect a surprise. Commerce can in a measure protect itself, but ill-built cities and crops must at intervals suffer. The lesson of the last one is of warning, but how to profit by it outruns prevision that seeks absolute security. There can be no such thing, ‘for as the pestilence walketh in darkness and destruction wasteth at noon still a thousand shall fall and ten thousand at thy right hand, for the hand of man cannot stay the tempest.’ This is according to all human experience.”

To have saved and then to have lost is if anything harder to hear than to have lost at first. It was thus with Mr. William H. Irvin, who succeeded in saving his wife and all but one of his children from the death which the elements were so anxious to administer, but afterwards lost his wife, who succumbed to the injuries she received that night.

The story of Irvin and his family’s escape is like those of others who succeeded in getting out alive. It is simply marvelous, and their coming out with their lives can only be credited to that supreme power which is even mightier than the winds and sea. While he did all that any human could in saving his loved ones, yet his efforts were naught in that mighty battle of the elements.