W. A. Fraser, of Dallas, general deputy of the Woodmen of the World of Texas, arrived in Dallas from Galveston where he had been for several days. He stated that complete as are the reports published in “The News,” the half has not been told of the terrible calamity that has visited the coast country. “On the approach of the storm,” he said, “I tried to leave on the International and Great Northern Railroad at 1.30 o’clock, but found that the bridges had been washed away and the water had risen to such an extent that it was impossible for me to get away from the depot, where I took shelter with about 150 other persons who had sought the same place of refuge.
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.
WHITE MEN AND NEGROES PLUNDER TOGETHER.
“They are not alone in this, but I am sorry to say that white men are side by side with them in their damnable work. Women could be seen on the first morning after the flood with baskets over their arms taking everything they could possibly pick up, without regard to whom it belonged to or what its value might be. What the city needs most, in my estimation, is pure water, food and able-bodied men who are willing to work, so the bodies can be removed from the wreckage and carried from the island and the carcasses of animals be burned or disposed of as quickly as possible. Whatever is to be done should be done at the earliest possible moment, as provisions are scarce and it is next to impossible to get fresh water. The sewerage system is also choked, and this combined with the stenches from decaying animal matter makes it almost impossible for people to exist for many days.
THE WRECK OF A DWELLING WHERE TWELVE MEN AND WOMEN HAD A MIRACULOUS ESCAPE
