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

SOME MEANS TO HELP PEOPLE.

“I think that we should not only feed and clothe, but that we ought to have some means to help people who have lost everything to make a start toward the restoration of their homes. To do this will require every dollar of $5,000,000.”

There are now on the scene more nurses and physicians than are required. The injured are rapidly recovering from their wounds, which are largely superficial. Many men and women are suffering from severe nervous shock, and find it impossible to sleep. Food is coming in by the boatload and carload faster than it can be handled, in such generous quantities that no further doubts are entertained about supplies. Relief headquarters in each of the twelve wards deal out supplies to applicants in their respective wards.

Estimates of the numbers dependent upon the relief committees vary. Mayor Jones makes it about 8000, while other authorities put the number as high as 15,000. In the business centre the streets have been cleaned and opened. All buildings still show marks of wind and water, but goods are displayed and business is being transacted. The city is gradually assuming its bustling ante-flood appearance. Stenches no longer assail the nostrils, except where much debris still remains untouched.

Cremation of the dead is being pushed, but it will be many days before the working parties get out the last of the bodies. The whole twenty-two miles of the island was submerged. The horrors of the western portion beyond the city limits are just being learned. At San Luis 181 bodies were burned to-day. Between twenty and thirty bodies were counted among the piles of the railroad bridge between the island and Virginia Point. In Kinkead’s addition about 100 were lost, eighteen in one house. There were also losses at Nottingham, one of the Galveston island villages, where nothing but wreckage remains.

One hundred bodies were buried in Galveston on Sunday. The further the men work in the Denver reservoir section the more numerous do they find the dead. Fires are burning every 300 feet on the beach and along many of the streets. Mayor Walter C. Jones to-day, in response to a request, made a statement of conditions and needs of Galveston people, basing his conclusions on the most current information which has come to him. Mayor Jones’ statement is as follows: