There were then on the scene more nurses and physicians than required. The injured were recovering rapidly from their hurts, which were largely superficial. Many men and women were suffering from severe nervous shock and found it impossible to sleep. Food was coming in by boatload and carload faster than it could be handled, in such generous quantities that no further doubts were entertained about supplies.
Estimates of the number dependent upon the relief committees varied. Mayor Jones made it about 8,000, while other authorities put the number as high as 15,000. In the business center the streets had been cleaned and opened. All buildings still showed marks of wind and water, but goods were displayed and business was being transacted.
The city was gradually assuming the bustling ante-flood appearance. The principal streets were electrically lighted. Stenches no longer assailed the nostrils, except in the outside circle of destruction, where much debris still remained untouched. Cremation of the dead was being pushed, but it was many days before the working parties got out the last of the bodies.
The whole twenty-two miles’ length of the island was submerged.
The horrors of the western portion beyond the city limits were just being learned at San Luis. One hundred and eighty-one bodies were buried on September 17. Between twenty and thirty bodies were counted among the piles of the railroad bridge between the island and Virginia Point. In Kinkead’s addition about 100 were lost, eighteen in one house.
The farther the men worked in the Denver reservoir section the more numerous were the dead. Fires were burning every 300 feet on the beach and along many of the streets.
Mayor Walter C. Jones made a statement on that day of conditions and needs of Galveston people, basing his conclusions on the most reliable information which has come to him.
Mayor Jones’ statement was as follows:
“It is almost impossible to speak definitely as yet of the needs of our people. We are broke, the majority of us. Galveston must have suffered, in my estimation, based upon all of the reports I have, $20,000,000. We now need money more than anything.
“From the advices I have received I believe the shipments of disinfectants and food supplies now on the way will be sufficient to meet the immediate wants. By the time these are used we shall have regained our transportation facilities and stocks of everything, so that we can use money more advantageously.