“Galveston, Texas, Sept. 12.—Charles S. Diehl, General Manager the Associated Press, Chicago: A summary of the conditions prevailing at Galveston is more than human intellect can master. Briefly stated, the damage to property is anywhere between $15,000,000 and $20,000,000. The loss of life cannot be computed. No lists could be kept and all is simply guesswork. Those thrown out to sea and buried on the ground wherever found will reach the horrible total of at least 3,000 souls.
“My estimate of the loss on the island of the City of Galveston and the immediate surrounding district is between 4,000 and 5,000 deaths. I do not make this statement in fright or excitement. The whole story will never be told, because it cannot be told. The necessities of those living are total. Not a single individual escaped property loss. The property on the island is wrecked; fully one-half totally swept out of existence. What our needs are can be computed by the world at large by the statement herewith submitted much better than I could possibly summarize them. The help must be immediate.
“R. G. LOWE,
“Manager Galveston News.”
Thursday evening at the Tremont Hotel, in Galveston, occurred a wedding that was not attended with music and flowers and a gathering of merrymaking friends and relatives. On the contrary, it was peculiarly sad. Mrs. Brice Roberts expected some day to marry Earnest Mayo; the storm which desolated so many homes deprived her of almost everything on earth—father, mother, sister and brother. She was left destitute. Her sweetheart, too, was a sufferer. He lost much of his possessions in Dickinson, but he stepped bravely forward and took his sweetheart to his home.
Galveston began, September 14, to emerge from the valley of the shadow of death into which she had been plunged for nearly a week, and on that day, for the first time, actual progress was made toward clearing up the city. The bodies of those killed and drowned in the storm had for the most part been disposed of. A large number was found when the debris was removed from wrecked buildings, but on that date there were no corpses to be seen save those occasionally cast up by the sea. As far as sight, at least, was concerned, the city was cleared of its dead.
They had been burned, thrown into the water, buried—anything to get them quickly out of sight. The chief danger of pestilence was due almost entirely to the large number of unburied cattle lying upon the island, whose decomposing carcasses polluted the air to an almost unbearable extent. This, however, was not in the city proper, but was a condition prevailing on the outskirts of Galveston. One great trouble heretofore had been the inability to organize gangs of laborers for the purpose of clearing the streets.
THE SAD SITUATION FOUR DAYS AFTER THE CATASTROPHE.
The situation in the stricken city on Wednesday, September 12, was horrible indeed. Men, women and children were dying for want of food and scores went insane from the terrible strain to which they had been subjected.
In his appeal to the country for aid, issued on Tuesday, September 11, Mayor Walter J. Jones said fully 5,000 people had lost their lives during the hurricane, this estimate being based upon personal information. Captain Charles Clarke, a vessel-owner of Galveston, and a reliable man, said the death list would be even greater than that, and he was backed in his opinion by several other conservative men who had no desire to exaggerate the losses, but felt that they are justified in letting the country know the full extent of the disaster in order that the necessary relief might be supplied.
It was the general opinion that to hide any of the facts would be criminal.