The search for victims of the flood at Seabrook resulted in fifty bodies being recovered. Seabrook was a favorite summer resort with many Texas people, and its hotels were filled with guests. Many were out on pleasure jaunts when the storm came upon them. There were many guests in the private houses which were swept away.
The casualties at Texas City were five.
Velasco, situated near the mouth of the Brazos river, asked for help. Over one-half of the town was destroyed and eleven people lost their lives. Reports from the adjacent country showed that many negroes were killed.
Eleven negro convicts employed on a plantation in Matagorda county were killed by the collapse of a building in which they had sought refuge from the storm.
The Town of Matagorda, situated on the coast, was in the brunt of the storm. Several people were killed in the Towns of Caney and Elliott, in the same county. The new buildings on the Clemmons convict farm, owned and operated by the State, were destroyed and several convicts injured. The crops were also ruined.
Over fifty negroes were killed in Wharton county, ten being killed on one plantation near the Town of Wharton.
Bay City suffered a loss of nearly all of its buildings and three were killed there. There were many homeless people in Missouri City, every house in the town but two being destroyed. The destitute people were living out of doors and camping on the wet ground.
Outside of the cities of Galveston and Houston, the greatest suffering was between Houston and East Lake, inland, and on the coast to the Brazos river. There was no damage at Corpus Christi, Rockport, or in that immediate section of the coast.
People in immediate need of relief were those of the Colorado and Brazos river bottoms. The planters in that section had everything swept away last year, and the flood this year devastated their crops, leaving the tenants in a state bordering on starvation. An enormous acreage was planted in rice and the crop was ready for harvesting when the furious winds laid everything low.
At Wharton, Sugarland, Quintana, Waller, Prairie View and many other smaller places barely a house was left standing. Many of the farm hands had been brought into that section to assist at cotton picking and other farming. The people were huddled in small cabins when the first signs of a storm began brewing. But few escaped. Their clothing and everything was gone. They were absolutely devoid of even the necessities with which to sustain life.