Generally speaking, conditions are improved at every point. The various committees continue to carry out the tasks they have in hand, and on all sides progress which would not have been thought possible is being made. Business concerns are resuming business or making every possible effort toward that end. Wherever possible, buildings are being repaired, at least to an extent which will protect their contents from the elements. Roofs are being replaced with temporary shields against the wind and rain, panes of glass are being placed in the frames which were destroyed by the storm, and stores are being cleaned out and the damaged goods they contain exposed to the sun and wind in order to dry them and thus minimize the damage done.
RAIN ADDS TO THE SUFFERING.
Early this morning there was a sharp shower of rain—the first since the storm—which, while it lasted but a few minutes, showed how absolutely necessary it is to get the buildings of the town in something like their normal condition as soon as possible. In the Tremont Hotel, the rain over a part of which is the office, came in in many places—through parts of the roof itself, through the broken skylight and through the empty window panes. Out in the residence portion of the town the rainfall undoubtedly caused at least a great amount of discomfort, for hundreds of houses which were not absolutely uninhabitable during the prevalence of fair weather were drenched and deluged, and the weary and heartsick people they sheltered were rendered all the more miserable.
It must be understood in this connection that while the work of repairing and making proof against the elements the building of the city is a very important feature of the situation, the matter of cleaning up the debris and disposing of the dead bodies therein is paramount on account of the danger which might result to the public health were this work not done as rapidly as possible.
Right here it should be said that, all reports to the contrary notwithstanding, there is at present practically no likelihood whatever that anything like an epidemic will result from the presence of decomposing bodies and the deposits made by the water during the storm. This is perhaps a broad statement, but it is one which is backed by all of the eminent medical authorities of the city, who are certainly in a position to know if any one is.
DISINFECTING THE CITY.
Satisfactory progress is being made in the work of removing the offending matter, and a large amount of disinfectants of various sorts is being used where it will do the most good. The fear of an epidemic is one which has probably caused a great deal of uneasiness among the people who have friends and relatives still in the city, but from the standpoint of a layman, who has formed his opinion largely from investigation and from physicians who are interested in the work of caring for the health of the city, it may be stated, without any reservations whatever that the possibility of the prevalence in the future of any malignant disease is very remote indeed. Those interested may well set their fears on this score at rest.
The progress that has been made in securing a correct list of the dead is something wonderful, considering all the circumstances. Debris is being removed in all parts of the town and many more bodies were burned to-day. There are places here, however, which the workers have been unable to reach. Unless he goes into the mass of debris he can not imagine a condition equal to that which exists. There are places where the wreckage is piled so high and is in such an entangled mass that the workers will have great difficulty in getting it cleared away. There are some places where timber enough is stacked in a confused heap which is of quantity sufficient to stock a good-sized lumber yard. Houses have been torn limb from limb, as it were, and from beneath the unexplored depths of these places more bodies will be found.
Dr. J. Wilkes O’Neill, of Philadelphia, Secretary of the Associate Society of the Red Cross, received a letter from President Clara Barton, dated Galveston, September 19, in which she says: