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

PREPARING TO LIGHT THE CITY.

“While the damage to the municipal electric light plant is very extensive, there is a great deal of salvage and nothing to interfere with an early resumption of operations. Temporary sheds will be erected at once over the engines and dynamos and they will be soon put in condition for service. The principal mains, on Market street and Ball avenue, I find to be intact. The engines can be operated as soon as the steam pipes and the breaching to the boilers can be repaired. We will have the business district between avenue A and Church street, Twentieth street and Rosenberg avenue, lighted within a week or ten days. This is about the earliest date that we deem it safe to turn on the current owing to the amount of debris in the streets, the large number of men engaged in saving property and the menace to life and property that an electric current might prove to be.

“One circuit in the business district will be completed in two days. The entire lighting service in that territory embracing Tenth street to Thirty-seventh street, avenues A to avenues K and L, can be restored and in operation within sixty days. The lighting service for the public buildings will be reinstalled as soon as the buildings are put in condition to receive the wiring. I have received such generous and noble offers of assistance from strong financial quarters in the north that we will be able to secure all the material necessary to restore the plant and system at our own terms and have as long as the city wants to pay for same. The most regrettable and deplorable feature to me is the loss of fifteen of my employes and their families.

“I am not inclined to give up or lose courage or heart, and I feel like the old king at the siege of Megara, who is reported to have said when taken prisoner: ‘My palace has fallen about my head, my city is in flames, my state ravaged by my enemies, my wife and children I know not where; no cloak to shield me from cold, but I have lost nothing. I have my intellect, my faith, my courage and my loyalty. These can not be taken from me, and, having them, I have lost nothing.’