“A woman who had just given birth to a child was carried from her home to a house a block distant, the men who were carrying her having to hold her high above their heads, as the water was five feet deep when she was moved.
“Many stories were current of houses falling and inmates escaping. Clarence N. Ousley, editor of the Galveston Evening Tribune, had his family and the families of two neighbors in his house when the lower half crumbled and the upper part slipped down into the water. Not one in the house was hurt.
“Of the Lavine family, six out of seven are reported dead. Of the Burnett family only one is known to have been saved. The family of Stanley G. Spencer, who met death in the Cotton Exchange saloon, is reported to be dead.
“The Mistrot House, in the west end, was turned into a hospital. All of the regular hospitals of the city were unavailable.
“Of the new Southern Pacific works little remains but the piling. Half a million feet of lumber was carried away, and Engineer Boschke says, as far as the company is concerned, it might as well start over again.
“Eight ocean steamers were torn from their moorings and stranded in the bay. The Kendall Castle was carried over the flats from the Thirty-third street wharf to Texas City and lies in the wreckage of the Inman pier. The Norwegian steamer Gyller is stranded between Texas City and Virginia Point. An ocean liner was swirled around through the West Bay, crashed through the bay bridges and is now lying in a few feet of water near the wreckage of the railroad bridges. The steamship Taunton was carried across Pelican Point and is stranded about ten miles up toward East Bay. The Mallory steamer Alamo was torn from her wharf and dashed upon Pelican flats and the bow of the British steamer Red Cross, which had previously been hurled there. The stern of the Alamo is stove in and the bow of the Red Cross is crushed.
“Down the channel to the jetties two other ocean steamships lie grounded. Some schooners, barges and smaller craft are strewn bottom side up along the slips of the piers. The tug Louise of the Houston Direct Navigation Company is also a wreck.
“It will take a week to tabulate the dead and the missing and to get anything near an approximate idea of the monetary loss. It is safe to assume that one-half of the property of the city is wiped out and that one-half of the residents have to face absolute poverty.
“At Texas City three of the residents were drowned. One man stepped into a well by a mischance and his corpse was found there. Two other men ventured along the bay front during the height of the storm and were killed. There are but few buildings at Texas City that do not tell the story of the storm. The hotel is a complete ruin.
“For ten miles inland from the shore it is a common sight to see small craft, such as steam launches, schooners and oyster sloops. The life boat of the life-saving station was carried half a mile inland, while a vessel that was anchored in Moses Bayou lies high and dry five miles up from Lamarque.”