“While on the way over we discovered the bodies of several people and quite a number of horses and cows, and as we got off the boat, just under the wharf was a pile of twenty or twenty-five drowned people. Just after leaving the wharf we saw the remains of seven people which were being prepared for cremation. The town is under martial law, and on my way up to the city I was hailed by guards three different times, but after explaining I was permitted to proceed.
“I do not think the conditions at Galveston have been over-drawn by the newspaper reports. In fact, it is more deplorable than any words or picture could portray to the mind. Before we arrived several parties had been shot for robbing the dead and looting houses. Some of our party walked down the beach and found a couple of white men who were breaking open and robbing the trunks which had floated ashore, taking the garments from them and drying them on the grass. These trunks contained all kinds of family wearing apparel.
“We found that all the insurance men of Galveston and their immediate families were safe excepting two married sisters of Mr. Harris, who were drowned with their eight children. They were drowned in their own yards and the bodies afterward recovered and buried there. The loss to the insurance companies from a financial standpoint will be very heavy on account of the cancellation of policies under which there is now no liability, the houses having been destroyed. Again, a great many people who are indebted to the insurance agents cannot pay for the reason that they have lost everything.
CITY WILL RECOVER FROM THE BLOW.
“If the Government and the railroads will repair and rebuild their property in Galveston the city may recover from the blow, but unless this is done there will be very slim chances for the city to attain the position as a commercial point it has heretofore held. The losses of life and accident insurance companies will be something enormous.
“What the people of Galveston need most, in my opinion, is lime and workingmen, especially carpenters and tinners. The citizens are fully aware of the sympathy they are receiving and the liberal manner in which the people of the country have come to their relief from a financial standpoint, but the immediate need is a sufficient number of hands to clean up the city and remove the debris. Among the important buildings destroyed were the cotton mills, baggage factory and the electric light and power houses, the large elevators and the Texas flouring mills, with several million bushels of wheat.”
W. E. Parry, of Dallas, was one of those who weathered the hurricane in the union depot at Galveston. He said that he was particularly fortunate, and did not even get wet. In telling the story of his experience he said: “I left Houston Saturday morning and knew nothing of the storm until we reached Virginia Point. The wind was blowing a gale and the water in the bay was high and a considerable sea running. We got over on Galveston Island at 10.30 and found the track washed out. A switch engine and a coach was sent to us and everybody, including the train crew, was transferred. The water was rising all this time and the wind was increasing in violence. The water got over the track and put out the fire in the engine, but the steam lasted long enough to get into the depot. While going in the train crew had to go ahead and push floating poles and ties and wreckage off the track.
“We got to the depot at 2.10 in the afternoon. The wind was still growing stronger and the air was full of sheets of water. The streets were waist-deep and the water was running like a millrace. We could see people wading around trying to collect their families and effects, and the bus was still running between the depot and the Tremont. I knew the depot was a new, strong building, and I decided to stay there.
GREAT GUSTS OF WIND.
“Every gust of wind seemed fiercer and more wicked than any. It was blowing in a straight line from the northeast in great, vicious gusts, as if it would tear down everything. Soon the water came into the ground floor of the depot, and we had to go to the second floor. The wind kept increasing in velocity and began to blow the windows in, tearing out frames and all and throwing them across the rooms. Men went to work and put additional braces across the large panes of glass and wedged them tight with newspapers.