“Now I am much better off. I am safe, so please don’t worry. I hope to hear from you soon.
“Best love and kisses to both from
“NELLIE.”
CHAPTER XVI.
Galveston’s Inhabitants Refuse to Heed the Lessons Taught by their Experiences—Carelessness in Failing to Provide Against the Recurrence of Catastrophes.
Although Galveston had been struck three times with floods and hurricanes even this experience was not enough to convince the residents that it might happen again. Only a few of the more cautious had any idea after the last disaster of taking steps to prevent its repetition. Asked if anything would be done to make future floods impossible they might probably quote the old saw: “Lightning never strikes in the same place twice,” and seem to think that settled it. In the next sentence they would compare the damage done in the floods of 1875 and 1886 with this latest disaster.
“No,” said E. M. Hartrick, assistant United States engineer, “the people of Galveston will go on living in fancied security just as they did before. The plan to put a dike around the city is perfectly feasible and so is a series of jetties. I think the good old Holland plan is the best. The city doesn’t need to be raised. I was six years city engineer of Galveston, and following the storm of 1886 drew plans for a dike ten feet high and extending all around the island except on the north side. There the wharves were to be raised and form the dike.
“Galveston gave this plan consideration, and there is a map of the city in existence which shows it with a dike surrounding it. The legislature gave authority to bond the city, but it was some months after the flood when this had been secured, and the people said, ‘Oh, we’ll never get another one,’ and they didn’t build.”