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

FULL LIST CANNOT BE KNOWN.

As to the dead, as stated before, how the full list will be ever known is hard to say. There are places in the city where for blocks and blocks not a house remains, and no one can give an instance of having seen a resident of the locality since the fury of the storm was spent. Whole families were swept out to sea, and the survivors of the calamity are too busy with their own and the work which must be done to remember whom they knew when the Island City was in its prime.

Another point in the matter of the dead is that there were many visitors in the city at the time whose names have never been reported either in the list of the living or of the dead. Possibly few people knew they were here, and in the confusion incident to the days following the storm those who were cognizant of the presence of these visitors have been too busy to think of the stranger in the land.

It is true that a clew to missing people is gained by the inquiries of anxious friends or relatives, and these queries are answered either “dead” or “alive.” But remember that in every city in the country there are a certain number of people who are unknown beyond the limits of their own home.

In this class also can be included many colored people. Colored people always know each other, but it is in many instances that they know nothing of surnames. There are servants whose names are not known beyond Mary or Liza or by whatever appellation they are addressed, and it is possible that a great many of these have been lost, increasing the number of dead, but never getting upon the roll of those who were so suddenly swept away.