THE MOST PROMISING TOWN IN THE SOUTH.
“Galveston was the most promising town in the South, so far as shipping is concerned,” said Thomas B. Bryan, the founder of North Galveston, the day after the disaster occurred. “There has been persistent opposition to it on the part of a railroad that wished the transportation of cotton and other produce farther east, but finally the geographical position of Galveston triumphed. Even Collis P. Huntington, the railroad magnate, succumbed, and later he inaugurated improvements in Galveston on the most colossal scale, involving an expenditure of many millions of dollars. One of the last announcements Mr. Huntington made before his death was that Galveston would become the greatest shipping port in America if money could accomplish it. At the time I was in Galveston, a few weeks ago, there was an army of workmen employed by the Southern Pacific Railroad constructing great docks and wharves, which were to eclipse any on the globe.
“Some conception of Galveston can be formed by supposing the business district of Chicago—say from Lake to Twenty-second street—were to extend out into the lake on a pier for a distance of three miles and at a height above the water varying from three to seven, and possibly, in some places, nine feet. My own observation of Galveston induced my taking hold of the nearest eligible elevated locality for residences, which is North Galveston, sixteen miles from the city proper. It has an elevation above the water of fifteen to twenty feet more than Galveston, and is free from inundation. No news has reached me from North Galveston, and, though damage may have been done by wind, I am confident none can be done by water or waves.”
HOW THE HURRICANE ORIGINATED.
Storms which move with the velocity of that which swept Galveston and which are common to the southern and southeastern coasts of the United States invariably originate, according to Weather Forecaster H. J. Cox, of the United States Weather Bureau at Chicago, in “the doldrums,” or that region in the ocean where calms abound. In this particular instance the place was south of the West Indies and north of the equator. The region of the doldrums varies in breadth from sixty to several hundred miles, and at different seasons shifts its extreme limits between 5 degrees south and 15 degrees north. It is always overhung by a belt of clouds which is gathered by opposing currents of the trade winds.
“The storm which swept Galveston and the surrounding country, I should say, originated at a considerable distance south of the West Indies, in this belt of calms,” said Forecaster Cox the Monday night following the catastrophe.
“It was caused by two strong currents meeting at an angle, and this caused the whirling motion which finally spent its force on the coast of Texas. It is seldom that a storm originating in the doldrums moves so far inland as did this one, but it is not, however, unprecedented. The reason this storm reached so far as Galveston was that the northwesterly wind moved about twice as fast as it usually does before reaching land. Usually the force of these winds are spent on the coast of Florida and sometimes they reach as far north as North Carolina. When they strike the land at these points they are given a northeasterly direction.
“This storm missed the eastern coast of the United States, and consequently was deflected to the west. Thunderstorms are prevailing in Kansas and all of the district just north of the course of the storm, which is the natural result after such commotion of the elements. The conditions of the land are such about Galveston that when the storm reached that far it had no possible means of escape, and hence the dire results. If there had been a chance for the wind to move further west along the coast it would in all probability have passed Galveston, giving the place no more than a severe shaking up. In this event the worst effect would in all probability have been felt on the eastern coast of Mexico.”
It was an absolute impossibility for anyone to form an idea of the extent and magnitude of the disaster within a week of its occurrence. The morning of Sunday, when the wind and the waves had subsided, the streets of the city were found clogged with debris of all sorts. The people of Galveston could not realize for several days what had happened. Four thousand houses had been entirely demolished and hardly a building in the city was fit for habitation.