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

REVEALED A SCENE.

Wednesday the sun drew aside the curtains of darkness and revealed a scene that is impossible of description. I spent hours driving or riding about the city, and witnessed the saddest spectacles ever seen by human eyes. What were once Galveston’s splendid business thoroughfares were wrecked and crumbled. The Strand, known to every business man of the State, was lined on both sides with crumbling walls and wrenched buildings, and the street was a mass of debris, such as metal roofs rolled up like a scroll, splintered timbers, iron pillars, broken stone and bricks; the same was true of Mechanic, and Market, and Tremont, and Twenty-first and Twenty-second, and every other street of the great business heart of Galveston.

The stores were ruined and deserted, and the blight of destruction was visible as far as the eye could reach. As horrible as all this was, it was as nothing to the hopeless faces of the miserable men, women and children in the streets.

I will not undertake to describe them, but as long as I live I will never forget them. Many I knew personally, and these gave greeting, but God, it was nothing but a handshake and tears. It seems that everybody I had ever known here had lost somebody. The tears in their eyes, the quiver of their voices, the trembling of lips! The brand of agony was upon their faces and despair was written across their hearts. I would plunge a dagger through my heart before I would endure this experience again.

The readers of this must pardon the personal nature of this narrative. It is impossible to write without becoming a part of the story this time. I met Elma Everhart, formerly a Dallas boy. I had known him from childhood, and all his people. Indeed, I had once been an inmate of their home in Oakcliff. I hardly knew him when he stopped me, he had grown so much. He said: “Katy and her baby are at Dickinson. That town was destroyed, but they are alive. I am going there and leave Galveston forever.”