To begin over again the owners of plantations had to rebuild houses, purchase new machinery and new draft animals. The loss of horses and mules in the stricken district was a severe blow. Live stock interests were also greatly harmed.
In the opinion of railway men several years must elapse before the farming districts can be restored to their former conditions. The advanced prices of building material was a hard blow for the smaller farmers, who in most instances were owners of farms.
Appeals for relief were received from everywhere in the storm center. The season had given promise of producing the best harvest in the previous fifteen years.
Five Houston people were drowned at Morgan’s Point—Mrs. C. H. Lucy and her two children, Haven McIlhenny and the five-year-old son of David Rice. Mr. Michael McIlhenny was rescued alive, exhausted and in a state of terrible nervousness.
McIlhenny said the water came up so rapidly that he and his family sought safety upon the roof. He had Haven in his arms and the other children were strapped together. A heavy piece of timber struck Haven, killing him. McIlhenny then took up young Rice, and while he had him in his arms he was twice washed off the roof and in this way young Rice was drowned.
Mrs. Lucy’s oldest child was next killed by a piece of timber and the younger one was drowned, and next Mrs. Lucy was washed off and drowned, thus leaving Mr. and Mrs. McIlhenny the only occupants on the roof. Finally the roof blew off the house and as it fell into the water it was broken in twain, Mrs. McIlhenny remaining on one half and McIlhenny on the other. The portion of the roof to which Mrs. McIlhenny clung turned over and this was the last seen of her. McIlhenny held to his side of the roof so distracted in mind as to care little where or how it drifted. He finally landed about 2 p. m. Sunday.
At Surfside, a summer resort opposite Quintana, there were seventy-five persons in the hotel. The water was about it, and the danger was from the heavy logs floating from above. Only a few men worked in the village, so a number of women went into the water to their waists and assisted in keeping the logs away from the hotel, and no one was lost.
At Belleville every house in the place was damaged, and several were demolished, including two churches. One girl was killed near there. Not a house was left at Patterson in a habitable condition.
Two boarding cars were blown out on the main line and whirled along by the wind sixteen miles to Sandy Point, where they collided with a number of other boarding cars, killing two and injuring thirteen occupants.
A dead child, the destruction of all houses except one and the destitution of some fifty families is the record of the work of the hurricane at Arcadia. From fifty other towns came reports that buildings were wrecked or demolished. Most of them reported several dead and injured.