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 WONDERFUL ESCAPES.

There were many wonderful incidents of the great storm. In the infirmary at Houston was a boy whose name is Rutter. He was found on Monday morning lying beside a truck on the land near the town of Hitchcock, which is twenty miles to the northward of Galveston. This boy is only 12 years old. His story is that his father, mother and two children remained in the house. There was a crash and the house went to pieces. The boy says that he caught hold of a trunk when he found himself in the water and floated off with it. He thinks the others were drowned. With the trunk the boy floated. He had no idea of where it took him, but when daylight came he was across the bay and out upon the still partially submerged mainland.

When their home went to pieces the Stubbs family, husband, wife and two children, climbed upon the roof of a house floating by. They felt tolerably secure, when, without warning, the roof parted in two places. Mr. and Mrs. Stubbs were separated and each carried a child. The parts of the raft went different ways in the darkness. One of the children fell off and disappeared, and not until some time Sunday was the family reunited. Even the child was saved, having caught a table and clung to it until it reached a place of safety.

One of the most remarkable escapes recorded during the flood was reported to-day when news came that a United States battery man on duty at the forts last week had been picked up on Morgan’s Point, injured but alive. He had buffeted the waves for five days and lived through a terrible experience. Morgan’s Point is thirty miles from Galveston.

Galveston, Tex., Sept. 14.—The local Board of Health through Dr. H. A. West, its secretary, has made a demand that the work of clearing up the dwelling houses be turned over to physicians. This work has been under the direction of Adjutant General Scurry, and he has proved himself so capable that the Relief Committee declined to make any division of responsibility.

Notwithstanding the fact that the number of boats carrying passengers between Texas City and Galveston has been largely increased, it was impossible yesterday to leave the city after the early morning hours. Yesterday the “Lawrence,” after jamming her nose into the mud, remained aground all day. Her passengers were taken off in small sailboats, and by noon a dozen of them heavily loaded started from Galveston to Texas City.