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

INTENSE SUFFERING ON THE WATER.

The wind died away utterly and the boats could neither go on to Texas City nor return to Galveston. None of them had more than a meager supply of water, which was soon exhausted; the sun beat down with a merciless severity. In a short time babies and young children became ill and in many instances their mothers were also prostrated. There was absolutely no relief to be had, as the tugs of Galveston Bay, which might have given the sloops tow, are all made for deep sea work and draw too much water to allow of their crossing the shallow channel.

Hour after hour the people on the boats, all of which were densely packed, were compelled to broil in the torturing and blinding sun. A slight breeze arising in the evening at 9 o’clock, the sailing craft which had left Galveston at noon began to dump their passengers upon the beach at Texas City. Owing to a delay in Houston trains it was fully twenty hours after their start from Galveston that the people who left there yesterday noon were able to move out from Texas City, which is only eight miles away, and by the time the train had made a start for Houston every woman in the crowd was ill through lack of food, exposure and insufficient sleep.

In the long list of the dead of Galveston the family name of Labett appears several times. Only a year or two ago five generations of the Labetts were living at one time in Galveston.

The family nearly suffered the destruction of the family name in the storm. A young man connected with one of the railroads was down town and escaped. When the parties of searchers were organized and proceeded to various parts of the city one of them came across this young Labett near the ruins of his home all alone. He had made his way there and had found the bodies of father and mother and other relatives. He had carried the dead to a drift of sand, and there without a tool, with his bare hands and a piece of board he was trying to scrape out gravel to bury the bodies.