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

ONSLAUGHTS OF THE STORM.

Of all those who took refuge there only two lost their lives, and those were in an outbuilding where some fifty-two had taken refuge. While the main building, where most of the people were, shook and trembled under the awful onslaughts made on it by the wind and water, and although the water kept coming up into that building until it stood three and a half feet deep on the lower floor, the building stood the shock bravely and not a life was lost in it.

Only those who were there and heard the terrible noises that the wind and water made in their mission of destruction, and only those who felt the building tremble and saw the houses around the place torn down and washed away, can realize the fearfulness of that evening and night. But during it all the Sisters were there, forgetting their own personal danger in quieting the fears of those who had come to them for refuge. It was indeed a hardened man that did not there that night ask his Creator for protection.

It was early in the afternoon that the refugees began to come. They came first from the flats east of the building, which is lower than the ground around and to the west of the Infirmary, the water rising there first. Then, as the storm kept increasing and the water rising, they began to come from the houses all around. They waded in first, but it was not long before it was too deep and turbulent for that. It was then boatloads began to arrive, and it was in this way that the boats were brought there which afterward were the means by which so many others were saved.

No sooner would a cargo of precious lives be left at the door than the boat would be snatched away by ready hands and taken out to pick up another load. This was continued all the afternoon and up until it became so dark the men could not see which way to go after they had procured a load of frightened people. At first it was a comparatively easy thing to push the boats about and collect people, but along in the afternoon the wind had so increased and the water became so agitated that it was with the greatest danger this was done.