“Texas is a vast State, and this fact might make it appear that more storms or other direful visitations fell to the lot of this people than residents of other parts of the country find it necessary to endure. The fact is that many States have been visited by floods this season, and in some places floods are feared year after year. So it is of other destructive visitations. They must be expected now and then anywhere from Maine to California, or, for that matter, at any place the world around. There is only one thing to do about it.
“People must prepare in advance for such troubles as far as possible and must stand ready to take the consequences and make the best of them. So it is now. So it will continue to be, here and elsewhere.”
CHAPTER XIII.
Refugees Continue the Terrible Story—Rigid Military Patrol—The City in Darkness at Night—Hungry and Ragged Throngs.
Persons who arrived in Dallas from Galveston not only confirmed all that had been said before or written about the disaster there, but gave more details of the horror. Each interview was more distressing than the one preceding it, and it seemed that even an approximate idea of the truth was yet to be given. Some accounts told of the deadly flood. Others told of the work of vandals and their speedy death at the hands of Uncle Sam’s fighters, and of hunger and sickness, woe and misery.
Newt M. Smith, of Dallas, who was sent to Galveston by the local insurance men to assist in the relief of the needy brethren in that city, was one of those to return with important information.
“When we arrived in Houston we were informed that no one would be permitted on the train without a pass from Mayor Brashear, of Houston,” he said. “We hunted the Mayor up and were told that 2000 passes had already been issued and that the train would carry only 800 people. We finally succeeded in getting on board without passes, some of the men climbing through the windows. Nearly all the dwellings and business houses of the small stations on the International and Great Northern between Houston and Galveston are either blown down or seriously damaged.
“At certain places along the railroad every telegraph pole was down for a distance of one-half or three-quarters of a mile, poles and wires being across the track. Some twelve or fifteen miles this side of the bay at one place I counted the carcasses of fourteen large cattle and horses that had drowned. Just before reaching Texas City Junction it was necessary for the passengers to abandon the train for the purpose of repairing and rebuilding a bridge across trestle which had washed away. Volunteers were called for to go into the mud and water, and more men volunteered than could get around the bridge timbers to replace them.
“It required three or four hours in which to repair the track at this point, during which some 250 passengers left the train, taking with them their valises, jugs of water and provisions, and walked a distance of six miles through the mud and water to Texas City. About two and a half miles west of Texas City, and about two miles from the bay, out on the bald prairie, is a large dredge-boat. For fifteen miles back from the bay can be seen millions of feet of debris of every description, including tops of houses, sashes, doors, pianos and pieces of household furniture of every kind. There were something over twenty-six bales of cotton that I counted out on the prairie inside of that distance, all compressed cotton which had evidently come from the wharf at Galveston.
BURYING THE DEAD.
“After arriving at Texas City we had to wait two or three hours for a boat, and during the time a number of the party walked down the beach and discovered and buried the bodies of eight men, women and children. A memorandum was taken describing as well as possible the people buried, and a headboard put up with a number corresponding to the one in the book. We left Texas City at 3.30 Tuesday evening, arriving at Galveston at 9.30.