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

RESUMING BUSINESS.

“A week in Galveston has made me still more confident that I was right in my conclusion. The work done during the past week has been wonderful, and within another week, I believe, every kind of business will be going on as before. We are again ready to receive cotton, and I have instructed our shippers to send it in. Before this business season is over we will be doing as much business as ever before, and before twelve months have passed our buildings will be restored.

“I know that croakers will say that this cannot be done, but the croaker will never rise in any country. I don’t believe in croakers. I believe with ‘The News,’ that this storm has indisputably proven that the island will not wash away. If that storm, the severest in the history of the world, did not wash the island away, nothing ever will eliminate it from the map. And it is not conceivable that another storm of that severity will ever strike again in this spot. The flood of the Brazos river, in last July, was unprecedented.

“There had never been such a flood before, and there had never been an overflow of that river in the month of July in all the history of the State. Again, the previous rises of the river had been gradual, but in July, 1899, the river rose two and a half feet in one night. All of that was very unusual, and it is improbable that it will ever be repeated. The storm at Galveston was likewise very unusual. The waters came from the bay and Gulf simultaneously, and met on the island. They did not go up Buffalo bayou, as they did in 1875, when lives were lost at Lynchburg.

“A great deal of the loss of life has been due to flimsiness of many houses put up here in recent years for rent. The lesson which Galveston has received is a terrible one, but it will lead to safer and better buildings. It is true that some good buildings were wrecked by the jamming of wreckage from flimsy buildings, but the fact that we have many buildings standing unharmed, proves that we can build enduring structures.