One of the passengers on the first relief train that went out of Houston on Saturday evening, during the prevalence of the storm, to bring the people in from La Porte and Seabrook, gives the following description of the trip:
“Little did we know what trials were before us as we started out for La Porte and Seabrook at 8 o’clock on that fatal Saturday night. But we did know our loved ones were in danger, and with a brave volunteer crew in charge of the train, and trusting to the good God above to care for us, we started, hoping for the best.
“The first obstacle that impeded our progress was a pine tree of about two feet in diameter across the track. This was soon cut in two and we journeyed along, the wind almost blowing the train off the track. We had gone only a few miles further when we collided with two box cars that had been blown from the switch to the main track.
“After a considerable delay we started again, engine crippled, and everybody wet as water could make them. At Pasadena we took on board several men, ladies and children, who had been standing waist deep in water for several hours. Soon Deep Water was reached. Here two ladies got off and were carried to the residence of Mr. W. E. Jones. The train had just started again when the depot blew away, part of it against our train, breaking the windows and blinds of the coach and throwing glass all over us. Luckily no one was hurt.
“We had now been three hours coming twelve miles, and we all began to grow more uneasy. It was at this point where we first felt or knew what a storm we were in. The coaches rocked like cradles, windows blew in, and it seemed that we would be blown away ourselves. After two hours more we reached East La Porte. There most of our companions left us to look for their people. It did not seem that anyone could live in that storm—the wind must have been blowing 100 miles an hour. But our friends knew that they were needed at their homes, and they launched out. Some to be blown back to us, only to try it over again; others to be blown in the mud and water.
DIFFICULTIES OF A TRAIN.
“After a considerable delay the train started on. At West La Porte we found the depot blown across our way. All went to work cutting and moving timbers, and with the assistance of the wind, we soon had the track clear. We now had but one more serious place to get across before we could get to Seabrook. At last we reached it, and were in a few minutes across Taylor’s bayou, which we found to be a half mile wide and the waves four feet high. This bayou, in ordinary weather, is about fifty feet wide. On reaching Seabrook we found the depot full of refugees, houses all gone, water over everything. Some of the families of our companions on the way were lost, never to be seen alive again.
“Here we started out to work in earnest and it was only a very short time before we had everyone that was without a home on board. By this time the train crew had fires in the coaches and we served coffee, cheese and bread to the hungry ones, and made them as comfortable as possible. We still had lots of work to do, though, and we were looking for it when a man appeared on the scene, reporting Judge Tod’s barn had blown down on two ladies and several children. We went to work to get them out, and after three hours’ work we rescued all alive except the mother. She probably could have saved herself, but she gave up her life for the children. She was found in a position leaning over them, protecting them.
“Finally day came and we could now see what damage the storm had done. Mr. Hamilton’s house was the only one left in the flats, and most of the houses on the ridge were blown to pieces. It was a miracle that more lives were not lost.
“We gathered up everyone who wanted to come and left for Houston at 9.30 A. M. Sunday, and arrived at Houston about 12 o’clock; our journey lasting eighteen hours, was over. The gentlemen on the train who had families at La Porte and Seabrook are under lasting obligations to the Southern Pacific officials and especially to the train crew. No braver crew ever went out with a train, and we wish to tender them our earnest and sincere thanks. Courage and manly conduct have always been lauded by the world, and no men ever stood more nobly to duty on battle grounds than did these men who ran the relief train in the full fury of the storm to the search for the wave-tossed people of La Porte and Seabrook.”