“Mrs. Spann came last. The water was over her chin. It was up to my shoulders when I went over. One man brought a bundle of clothing, such as he could find for us to put on, wrapped up in his mackintosh. He had to swim over. I spent the night, such a horrible one, wet from shoulder to my waist and from my knees down, and barefoot. Nobody had any shoes and stockings. Mrs. Spann did not have anything but a thin lawn dress and blanket wrapped around her from her waist down. Nellie had a lawn wrapper and blanket, and Fannie had a skirt and winter jacket. Mr. Mitchell had a pair of trousers and a light shirt and was barefooted. The house was packed with people just like us.
“The house had a basement and was of stone. The windows were blown out, and it rocked from top to bottom, and the water came into the first floor. Of course no one slept. About 3 o’clock in the morning the wind had changed and blew the water back to the gulf, and as we stood at the windows watching it fall we saw two men and two girls wading the street and heard Sidney calling for her mother. She and the young lady with her spent the night crowded into an office with nine men in total darkness, sitting on boxes, with their feet up off the floor. It was an immense brick building four stories high. They were on the second floor. The roof and one story was blown away and the water came up to the second floor. It was down toward the wharf.
“As soon as we could we waded home. Such a home! The water had risen three feet in the house and the roof being gone the rain poured in. I had not a dry rag but a dirty skirt which was hanging in the wardrobe and an underskirt with it. My trunk had floated and everything in it was stained except the gray skirt. We had not had anything to eat since noon the day before, and we lived on whisky. Every time the men would see us they would poke a bottle of whisky at us, and make us drink some. All we had all day Sunday was crackers at 50 cents a small box and whisky.
“We were all so weak we knew we could not get any more, so Miss Decker and I went down about 10 o’clock. It was awful. Dead animals everywhere, and the streets filled with fallen telegraph poles and brick stores blown over. Hundreds of women and children and men sitting on steps crying for lost ones, and half of them, nearly, injured. Wild-eyed, ghastly-looking men hurried by and told of whole families killed.
“I could not stand any more and made them bring me home, and fell on the bed with hysterics. They poured whisky down me, but the only effect it had was to make my head ache worse. I had about got straightened out when a girl and a woman came to the house—relatives of Mrs. Spann—who had lost their mother and friends and house, and all they had. They had hysterics, and everybody cried, and I had another spell. All day wagon after wagon passed filled with dead—most of them without a thing on them—and men with stretchers with dead bodies with just a sheet thrown over them, some of them little children.
“We waited, every minute expecting to have the two bodies brought here. But they had not been found up to now, and all hope is lost. There is a little boy in the house that spent the night in the water clinging to a log, and his father and mother and four sisters were drowned. He is all alone. Last night Mr. Mitchell took Miss Decker and I to another boarding house to find a dry bed. We slept on a folding bed, with nothing under us but a rug and sheet, and I had to borrow something dry to sleep in. The husband of the lady who lost her mother has just come from Houston. He walked and swam all the way. He is nearly wild, and she is just screaming. I cannot write any more. Am coming home soon as I can.”
SAVED AS BY A MIRACLE.
The Stubbs family, consisting of father, mother and two children, was in its home when it collapsed. They found refuge on a floating roof. This parted and father and one child were swept in one direction, while the mother and the other child drifted in another. One of the children was washed off, but Sunday evening all four were reunited.
Mrs. P. Watkins became a raving maniac as the result of her experiences. With her two children and her mother she was drifting on a roof, when her mother and one child were swept away. Mrs. Watkins mistakes attendants in the hospital for her lost relatives and clutches wildly for them.
Harry Steele, a cotton man, and his wife sought safety in three successive houses which were demolished. They eventually climbed on a floating door and were saved.