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 MEN STUCK TO THEIR WORK.

Notwithstanding this great danger and the hard task of handling the boats, the men stuck to it manfully. Not once did they stop for even a breathing spell. They realized the terrible danger that was before those who had not found a stable refuge, and stood to the work heroically. Many times were the boats almost swamped, and many times did the occupants and those who were pushing come within an ace of drowning, but looking death in the face and defying the wind and waters to do their worst, they kept at their mission of salvation until blinded by the darkness. Even before they made their last loads houses were beginning to go down, maiming and drowning their inmates.

After the men had shown the heroism born in them, it was the turn of the women to show their mettle, and they did it, every one of them. The Sisters forgot the great danger of instant death and went about comforting and trying to ease the fears of the many who had come to their institution seeking safety. But even they shuddered with fear when they saw the house formerly occupied by the patients from the Santa Fe road, go down, burying the refugees whom they knew to be in the building, go down, not onto the ground, but into a boiling, seething mass of water—that water which seemed to vie with the wind in its destruction.

Then when the water kept rising and the wind increasing in velocity, until it seemed that nothing could stand before it, it was, indeed, a time to be afraid. This condition continued for several hours, which seemed days to those whose hope was in its abatement, until about midnight the waters began to subside and the wind to decrease in velocity.

It was not until between 3 and 4 o’clock in the morning, however, that the water had gone down enough to allow any one to venture out. When the water had receded enough for one to go outside, it was found that the Santa Fe wing of the hospital, which was a frame building, was a mass of wreckage and had washed over against the rear of the Infirmary building proper. Knowing that there were refugees in the building when it went down, there was fear for their safety.