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 CRIES OF THE DYING.

“The depot was badly damaged, but no lives were lost there, although bodies were floating in every direction and the cries from the dying could be heard almost constantly. When daybreak came Sunday morning the sights presented were something terrible. It was hardly possible to walk along the streets without tumbling over dead bodies, and the only thing, in my estimation, that saved the city from being completely wiped out was the fact that the wind blew from the bay during the first part of the night—blowing the water up through town, in some places as high as fifteen feet—and the wreckage from destroyed houses was piled up along the Gulf front to a height of forty or fifty feet. When the wind changed and blew from the Gulf this wreckage acted as a breakwater and kept the waves from washing everything into the bay.

“As soon as daylight appeared the work of rescue commenced, but it was soon found that after several vacant stores and all the undertaking establishments had been crowded with the dead, that it would be impossible to handle them in this way. Barges were employed and into them the wagons unloaded the bodies, which were taken to the bay and there deposited. It can be safely said that there is not a single house in the entire town that has not been badly damaged in some way and there are whole families who will never be heard from again.

“Looting and vandalism are rife upon the island. The few soldiers they have are exhausted and unable to properly guard the city, and in my estimation the State troops should be sent there at once. Cases of where the fingers of women had been cut off so as to deprive them of their rings and their ears cut to get the earrings are common. It is a hard matter to get a negro to assist in any way in burying the dead, as they all seem to be very much interested in accumulating all the wealth they can possibly get from the dead and from the wreckage.