“The relief work is fairly well organized. Nothing has been accomplished except the distribution of food among the needy. About one-half of the city is totally wrecked and many people are living in houses that are badly wrecked. The destitute are being removed from the city as rapidly as possible. It will take three or four days yet before all who want to go have been removed from the island and city. A remarkably large number of horses survived the storm, but there is no feed for them and many of them will soon die of starvation.
“I am thoroughly satisfied after spending two days in Galveston that the estimate of 5,000 dead is too conservative. It will exceed that number. Nobody can ever estimate or will ever know within 1,000 of how many lives were lost. In the city the dead bodies are being got rid of in whatever manner possible. They are burying the dead found on mainland. At one place 250 were found and buried on Wednesday. There must be hundreds of dead bodies back on the prairies that have not been found. It is impracticable to make a search. Bodies have been found as far back as seven miles from the mainland shore. It would take an army to search that territory on the mainland.
“The waters of the gulf and bay are still full of dead bodies and they are being constantly cast upon the beach. On my trip to and from the quarantine I passed a procession of bodies going seaward. I counted fourteen of them on my trip in from the station, and this procession is kept up day and night. The captain of a ship who had just reached quarantine informed me that he began to meet floating bodies fifty miles from port.
“As an illustration of how high the water got in the gulf, a vessel which was in port tried to get into the open sea when the storm came on. It got out some distance and had to put back. It was dark and all the landmarks had been obliterated. The course of the vessel could not be determined and she was being furiously driven in toward the island by the wind. Before her course could be established she had actually run over the top of the north jetty. As the vessel draws twenty-five feet of water, some idea can be obtained as to the height of the water in the gulf.”
THRILLING EXPERIENCE OF A DALLAS GIRL.
One of the most thrilling descriptions of personal experience with the fearful flood ever written was that of Miss Maud Hall, of Dallas, Tex., who was spending her school vacation with friends at Galveston. She wrote an account of her adventures to her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Emory Hall:
“Dear Papa and Mamma: I suppose before this you will have received my telegram and know I am safe. This has been a terrible experience. I hope I will be spared any more such. I am just a nervous wreck—fever blisters over my mouth, eyes with hollows under them, and shaking all over. When I close my eyes I can’t see anything but piles of naked dead and wild-eyed men and women. I suppose I had better begin at the beginning, but I don’t know if I can write with any sense. Saturday at about 11 o’clock it began raining, and the wind rose a little. Sidney Spann and two young lady boarders could not get home to dinner. After the dinner the men left and we sat around in dressing sacks watching the storm. All at once Birdie Duff (Mrs. Spann’s married daughter) said: ‘Look at the water in the street; it must be the gulf.’
“There was water from curb to curb. It rose rapidly as we watched it, and Mrs. Spann sent us all to dress. It rose to the sidewalk, and the men began to come home. The wind and rain rose to a furious whirlwind and all the time the water crept higher and higher. We all crowded into the hall of the house—a big, two-story one—and it rocked like a cradle. About 6 o’clock the roof was gone, all the blinds torn off, and all the windows blown in. Glass was flying in all directions and the water had risen to a level with the gallery.
“Then the men told us we would have to leave and go to a house across the street at the end of the block, a big one. Mrs. Spann was wild about her daughter Sidney, who had not been home, and the telephone wires were down. The men told us we must not wear heavy skirts, and could only take a few things in a little bundle. I took my watch and ticket and what money I had and pinned them in my corset; took off everything from my waist down but an underskirt and my linen skirt; no shoes and stockings. I put what clothes I could find in my trunk and locked it. Tell mamma the last thing I put in was her gray skirt, for I thought it might be injured.
“It took two men to each woman to get her across the street and down to the end of the block. Trees thicker than any in our yard were whirled down the street; pine logs, boxes and driftwood of all sorts swept past, and the water looked like a whirlpool. Birdie and I went across on the second trip. The wind and rain cut like a knife and the water was icy cold. It was like going down into the grave, and I was never so near death, unless it was once before, since I have been here. I came near drowning with another girl. It was dark by this time, and the men put their arms around us and down into the water we went. Birdie was crying about her baby that she had to leave behind until the next trip, and I was begging Mr. Mitchell and the other man not to turn me loose.