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

THE CITY A PREY TO THE STORM.

“We have now the situation of Galveston fairly before us, and can understand how it easily succumbed to the violence of the late storm. It is true that the cyclone was of a potentiality which might have razed a more firmly built city, but probably in no other city in this country could it have caused such complete devastation.

“In twenty-five years the city of Galveston and the coast line of Texas have had three visitations of tropical hurricanes, bearing death and destruction in their blasts. Every year about the equinoctial season storms of greater or less fury occur and never, on account of the fragile materials and loose methods of building, have they failed of doing damage, but these three occupy thrones of mark above all others. In September, 1875, the coast of Texas, from the mouth of the Rio Grande to the Sabine Pass, was swept by a cyclone that followed with its central zone the curve of the coast, the wind varying at different times in its journey to southeast to southwest.

“The town of Indianola was blotted out of the world in an hour. Not half a dozen of its 1,200 inhabitants escaped, and the sea swept away the island on which it stood, and its site has no other mark than that which the waves rolling over it can offer. There were not enough of people to ask for help. And as there was no longer a place to rebuild, the little remnant moved elsewhere. The storm swept over Galveston, raising a tidal wave that changed in its impetuous flow the whole shape of the island. From the western end nearly two miles of land was cut off and carried around to the north side. The city was unroofed, houses toppled and fell, the water flowed in resistless currents along the levees, floating off to sea thousands of bales of cotton and destroying in its wild swirls the contents of stores and houses and many lives. The number never will be known but estimates place it at 800. For a week telegraphic communication was cut off.