“Early in the morning it was learned that the water supply had been cut off for some unknown reason. I presume that it was caused by the English ship which was blown up against the bridges, cutting the pipes. At all events, the city is without water, and something should be done by the citizens of Houston to relieve this situation. People who had depended on cisterns, of course, had their resources swept away, and there are but few large reservoirs of rain water to be found in the business district.
“The scene on the docks was a terrible one. The small working fleet and the larger schooners were washed over the docks and railroad tracks in frightful confusion. The Mallory docks were demolished. The elevators were torn in shreds. Three ocean liners were anchored off the docks and seemed to be in good condition. The damage to the shipping interests is simply immense, the Huntington improvement being entirely swept away.
FRIGHTFUL CONFUSION EVERYWHERE.
“I tried to get out of the town as quick as I could, and succeeded in securing passage on the first sloop which sailed, which happened to be the ‘Annie Jane,’ Captain Thomas Willoughby, who afterward proved to be an excellent sailor. We sailed from the Twenty-second street slip at 11 o’clock, with seven souls aboard. When we got outside the harbor we found it was blowing a terrific gale and the sea running very high. Under three reefs and the peak down we set our course for North Galveston. As we passed Pelican Flats we could see the English steamer anchored off over toward where the railroad bridge should be, and came to the conclusion that she had evidently broken the water mains and cut the supply off from the city.
“Another ocean liner could be seen off the shore of Texas City, in what would seem to have been about two feet of water in normal tide. We passed within a few hundred yards of where the Half-moon light house once stood, but could see no evidence of the light house, it being completely washed away. The waters of the bay were strewn with hundreds of carcasses of dead animals. We had a very hazardous passage, going against a five mile tide running out, but managed to reach North Galveston at 1.35.
“At North Galveston we found that a tidal wave had crossed the peninsula, carrying destruction in its path. The factory building and the opera house were completely blown down and other buildings destroyed. While there were no deaths reported at North Galveston, there were many hardships endured by those who battled with the elements.”
Dr. I. M. Cline, the chief of the weather bureau at Galveston, lived on the south side of Avenue Q, between Twenty-Fifth and Twenty-Sixth streets, in a strongly built frame house. It stood until houses all around it had gone down, and at last it had to give under the pressure of the wind and waves and other houses that were thrown against it, and with it about forty people went down, two-thirds of whom were drowned, among the number his wife. The first floor was elevated above the high water mark of 1875, and Dr. Cline thought he was safe there.
He left his office and went to his home and family early in the afternoon. The office telephone had been in use nearly all the morning giving warning to the people who called up from exposed points along the beach to ask about the outlook. One man was posted at the telephone nearly every minute of the time, and to each inquiry the answer was sent over the wire, “The worst is not over yet.”
LIVES SAVED BY FLIGHT.
Barometer readings of this tropical terror had not been taken since it left Havana and Key West, for the reason that it was travelling across the gulf and after barometer readings could have been taken nearer Galveston and reported here communication was shut off. But the weather bureau knew the worst was not over, and so perhaps thousands along the beach had warning and sought safety in the center of the island before the storm broke here in its fury. This partly accounts for so many people who lived right on the beach, whole families in instances, being saved, people who lost everything but who saved their lives, while others who lived in stronger buildings nearer in, some of whom had passed through the 1875 and other storms thought of course they could weather it, and thus were lost.