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

MILES OF WRECKAGE.

Six days of sunshine and seven nights of cool Gulf breezes have failed to draw the water held by the wreckage which, jammed into water-tight ridges, formed tanks to hold the salt water which inundated the city. While the ground all around these ridges is dry and hard, the removal of the top ridge disclosed several feet of water. At least 20 per cent. of the bodies recovered yesterday from the wreckage were taken out of water.

A reporter who attempted to make a circuit of the rescuing parties working on the beach and throughout the western part of the city, noted the finding of 123 and the discovery of at least twenty more bodies, which were so hemmed in by wreckage that it was impossible to get them out. It is impossible to estimate the number of dead buried beneath the miles of wreckage.

When the forces started out yesterday morning it was thought by many that the greater number of dead had been removed from the prisons built by the storm. The work had not progressed far before the workmen began to dig into ruins where bodies were found. During the hasty tour of the reporter he witnessed the finding of ten bodies between Tremont and Thirty-first streets along the ridge of wreckage which marks the path of the storm from the east to the west on the beach and extending inland from three to seven blocks.

The most important journal in Texas, the “Galveston News,” commented as follows:

“The ‘News’ desires to repeat what it has already said to its now unhappy people on Galveston Island. The sorrows of the past few days are overwhelming, and we all feel them and will continue to feel them so long as we live. It could not be expected that our friends and relatives and loved ones should be so suddenly torn from us without leaving scars from which those in the ranks of maturity can never recover.