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

“WE ARE BROKE.”

“It is almost impossible to speak definitely as yet of the needs of our people. We are broke, the majority of us. Galveston must have suffered, in my estimation, based upon all of the reports I have to the extent of $20,000,000. We now need money more than anything. From the advices I have received I believe that the shipments of disinfectant and food supplies now on the way will be sufficient to meet the immediate wants. By the time these are used we shall have regained our tranquility.”

This is the ninth day after the storm and still the grewsome works goes on of recovering the dead from the gigantic mass of debris that lines the southside of what remains of the city. Among the scores of bodies recovered and cremated yesterday was a mother with a suckling babe tightly clasped to her breast.

The body of Major W. T. Levy United States Immigrant Inspector of this district, was among the number. He had made a struggle to save his wife and three children but all were lost. The bodies of the wife and children have not been recovered, or if so they are still among the uninterred dead.

The task of recovering the bodies that are beneath or jammed into this immense rick of debris, extending from the eastern to the western limits of the city, a distance of over three miles, is a herculean one, and the most expeditious way of removing the whole from a sanitary point of view, is by fire. This, however, in the crippled condition of the fire department and water works, would endanger the remaining portion of the city. As it now stands this immense mass of debris, strewn with dead bodies, the carcasses of decaying animals, etc., is a sore menace to the health of the city and is the most difficult problem the Board of Health has to deal with.