“No words of complaint are heard. The woe which has come upon the island city is too great for tears and the afflictions of individuals in the loss of dear ones is entirely forgotten in the heroic fight that is being made for self-preservation for the community. Women of wealth steal through the streets without clothing, save for a bit of torn and grimy cloth wrapped about them. Men of means are in the same sorry plight and go about their grewsome task of cleaning up in so stolid a manner that it is obvious that Galveston has not awakened to the full horror of the situation. There has not been time to think.
“It is not uncommon to hear worn and haggard men refer to the loss of their families and their all with so little evidence of concern that it would attract wonder were not the senses of the visitor numbed by the terror of the situation. It is the reaction that is feared most by those who are leading the effort to make the city habitable. When this work is completed and there is time to think a heartrending wail of woe will go up from the twenty-odd thousand mourning survivors and gloomy desperation is expected to succeed the energy that is now manifested.
“The spirit of the people is aptly illustrated by Capt. John Delaney, chief customs inspector of the port. Delaney, 60 years of age, lost his entire family, wife, son and daughters. The bodies of the son and daughters were recovered, but no trace of Mrs. Delaney has been found. Whether her body was cast into the sea from one of the dread funeral barges or buried may never be known. Terrible as was the blow, Delaney was at his post the day following the disaster, attired in a pair of overalls, all that he managed to save. Yesterday a butcher, fortunate in saving a portion of two suits, loaned Delaney a pair of trousers. Clad in them he boarded a big German tramp steamer that arrived in port, inspected her and sent her back to New Orleans, as she was unable to discharge her cargo at Galveston.”
In his report to Washington Col. Hudnall placed the loss of life at from 6,500 to 8,000 and ridiculed the idea that any person could estimate the property loss at that time. He predicted that it would be impossible to estimate within $10,000,000 of the correct figures. His estimate was based upon what was said to be better information than that of any other visitor in Galveston, as he had made a thorough canvass of the city on horseback, visiting every locality where it was possible to travel, instructions from the treasury department being to thoroughly investigate in every detail. No one else had made such a canvass.
Vice-President and General Manager Trice of the International and Great Northern railroad, after looking over the situation in Galveston, said the railroad losses would aggregate $5,000,000 or $6,000,000 in that city alone.
At Galveston their wharves, warehouses, depots and tracks were ruined. The costly bridges which connected the island with the mainland were in ruins and must be entirely rebuilt.
The International and Great Northern and Santa Fe had considerable track washed out, while the Galveston, Houston and Northern suffered heavily.
All track between Seabrooke and Virginia Point, with all of the bridges, was washed away, and Section Foreman Scanlan and all his crew at Nadeau had been lost.
HOW THE INSURANCE COMPANIES FARED.
Naturally the question of insurance carried on the lives and property of people of Galveston was one much discussed after the first feeling of horror occasioned by the catastrophe had worn away, and the fact was developed that while the life insurance companies were somewhat badly hit—although in not so great a degree as would naturally be supposed when the heavy death list was taken into consideration—very little property insurance was carried by the business men and property owners of the desolated city.