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

MAKING A HURRIED ESCAPE.

“Monday at noon we left the wharf on the sailboat ‘Lake Austin’ in company with five others. We paid $100 for passage to Texas City. The names of those in the party were, J. A. Kemp, of Wichita Falls; Henry Sayles, of Abilene; A. W. Boyd, of Houston; W. A. Frazer, of Dallas, and myself and my wife. Mrs. Griswold was the first woman to leave the island after the disaster. We landed at Texas City at 2.30, caught the Texas Terminal Railway to a junction with the Galveston, Houston and Henderson. From there we walked for a mile to where they were repairing the track, and caught a freight train into Houston, arriving about 10.30 at night.

“The buildings in Galveston that are not totally wrecked are damaged in such a manner that I believe it will cost as much to repair them as it would to build new ones outright. There is not a church left standing. The general offices of the Santa Fe are badly wrecked. On the floor next to the top some of the inside door casings are forced out of the frames, and the entire building will have to be replastered before it will be safe to occupy. The train sheds are gone.

“On the Mallory wharves is a conglomerated pile of boxcars and boats and cotton wreckage of every description. The Mallory liner ‘Comal’ arrived there just after the storm, and, thank goodness, the crew has sense enough to stay on board the boat. Dead bodies are in all the wreckage under the wharf just like dead rats. The Santa Fe officials and the heads of the different departments in the general offices, so far as reported, are all safe. The families of a good many of the clerks have been lost entirely, and in other instances partially so.

“The Blum family came to the Washington Hotel at daylight Sunday morning with nothing on them but shreds. They had lost everything. When they left home they had thousands of dollars worth of diamonds on their persons. These were all lost in their battle with the elements. Their bodies were a mass of bruises.

“There is scarcely a stock of goods in Galveston that isn’t a total loss. But the Sealy residence, standing even as it does, where it seems as if the slightest breeze would strike it, hasn’t a scratch on it.