“Among the worst sufferers by the disaster were the churches. Nearly every one of them felt the effect of the storm. Some of them are entire wrecks, absolutely beyond repair.
“The work of relief continues energetically. Mayor Jones and his associates are bending every nerve to open a direct line of transportation with Houston by which he may be enabled promptly to receive the great quantity of provisions which are now on the way to the city.”
The War Department received the following telegram from General McKibben, who was sent to Galveston to report on conditions there:
“Arrived at Galveston at 6 P. M., having been ferried across bay in a yawl boat. It is impossible to adequately describe the condition existing. The storm began about 9 A. M. on Saturday, and continued with constantly increasing violence until after midnight. The island was inundated; the height of the tide was from eleven to thirteen feet. The wind was a cyclone. With few exceptions every building in the city is injured. Hundreds are entirely destroyed. All the fortifications except the rapid fire battery at San Jacinto are practically destroyed. At San Jacinto every building except the quarantine station has been swept away.
“Battery O, First Artillery, lost twenty-eight men. The officers and their families were all saved. Three members of the hospital corps lost. All bridges are gone, water works destroyed and all telegraph lines are down. The city is under control of Committee of Safety, and is perfectly quiet. Every article of equipment or property pertaining to Battery O was lost. Not a record of any kind is left. The men saved have nothing but the clothing on their persons. Nearly all are without shoes or clothing other than their shirts and trousers. Clothing necessary has been purchased, and temporary arrangements made for food and shelter. There are many thousand citizens homeless and absolutely destitute who must be clothed, sheltered and fed. Have ordered 20,000 rations and tents for 1000 from Sam Houston. Have wired Commissary-General to ship 30,000 rations by express. Lieutenant Perry will make his way back to Houston and send this telegram.
“McKibben.”
ALARMING RUMORS FROM GALVESTON.
The authorities at Galveston on the 13th prohibited the entry into the city of any one but men willing to work. Six hundred women and children fled from Galveston and came to Houston. The smell of the dead attained to the stifling point. Five hundred more bodies recovered from the debris were cremated in one pile. Several of the women who arrived at Houston from Galveston were fever patients. They were removed to ambulances from the train in stretchers. It was evident that the city was on the verge of an epidemic, if, indeed, it was not already in its throes. There were serious indications that the authorities were suppressing the facts.
The eagerness of the Board of Health that two miles of wreck be burned, whether it threatened to consume the other portion of the city or not, and the frantic haste of the police to get every woman and child out of the city, coupled with an order issued that no one be admitted to the island except for work, not even relatives of victims or anxious ones searching for relatives, and the seizure of the railroad running to Texas City to prevent people going to Galveston, all contributed to stamp the situation as beyond the control of the handful of inexperienced men in authority. The consensus of opinion of prominent Houston people who returned from the city was that the Federal Government owed it to the country to intervene at once. Otherwise, the danger of contagion to neighboring cities and States must continue to multiply each day.