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

URGED TO HURRY A TRAIN.

The boats could neither go on to Texas City nor return to Galveston. None of them had more than a meagre supply of water and no food, as the trip ordinarily does not require above an hour. Great suffering resulted. All afternoon they were becalmed, and, a slight breeze arising in the evening, at 9 o’clock at night the sailing craft which had left Galveston at noon began to dump their passengers upon the beach at Texas City. This place is now among the things that once were. There are no houses, no tents, no accommodations of any kind save a few passenger coaches standing upon the railroad track. These were speedily filled, and the rest of the women and children, all hungry and the latter crying for food, were compelled to remain on the beach.

An urgent message was sent to the railway people at Houston, saying that women and children were suffering, and asking them to hurry a train to Texas City for the purpose of conveying the refugees to Houston. No reply was received, and when a train, whose crew knew nothing of the existing conditions at Texas City, finally appeared, the announcement was made that it would not go before morning. The crowd at Texas City was more than enough to fill the train to the limit, but, notwithstanding, determined to allow the “Lawrence” to attempt once more the perils of the mud and await another consignment of refugees.

It was fully twenty hours after their start from Galveston that the people who left there yesterday noon were able to move out from Texas City, which is only eight miles away, and by the time the train had made a start for Houston, every woman in the crowd was ill through lack of food, exposure and insufficient sleep.