Miss Clara Barton, head of the Red Cross Society, wrote of the situation at Galveston on September 18:

“It would be difficult to exaggerate the awful scene that meets the visitors everywhere. The situation could not be exaggerated. Probably the loss of life will exceed any estimate that has been made.

“In those parts of the city where destruction was the greatest there still must be hundreds of bodies under the debris. At the end of the island first struck by the storm, and which was swept clean of every vestige of the splendid residences that covered it, the ruin is inclosed by a towering wall of debris, under which many bodies are buried. The removal of this has scarcely even begun.

“The story that will be told when this mountain of ruins is removed may multiply the horrors of the fearful situation. As usual in great calamities, the people are dazed and speak of their losses with an unnatural calmness that would astonish those who do not understand it.

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DESTRUCTION OF HOMES BY THE GALVESTON STORM