Huntsville gazette., 1886-06-19
'TWIxT WIND AND WATER,

Galveston Receives Rather Rough Hand
Hng-The Beach Scene OF Wreck and
Ruin, and Things Waited Around Pro-
miscuously Throughout tho Island BY q
Fifty-Mile Breeze.
GALVESTON, Tex, June 14.-Not since
the terrible cyclone of 1875 has Calves
ton Island been visited by such strong
wind and rainstorm as descended during
the preceding twenty-four hours. For
several days strong winds and heavy
rains have prevailed, but nothing was
thought OF the weather until last mid
night, when ths Wind struck fifty-mile-
an-hour gait and then began to tear
things round like straws At first it
came from the northeast, but soon veered
around to the south. After that it
rotated, coming from every point of the
compass and seeming to center square
upon the island.
As reports from adjoining sections of
the State fail to show increased velocity
of the wind the storm is conceded to be
OF a purely local character and origin.
Ranging all the way from forty to fifty
miles an hour, the storm, with occasional
brief rains, continued until about eleven
O'Clock, when the wind subsidized as sud-
denly as it came up.
The waters Of the bay and the gulf,
which had met across the east and west
ends of the island, flooding streets and
invading houses, receded in short order,
laying bare the wreckage wrought by the
fury of the combined elements.
On the beach between Twenty first and
Twenty seventh streets the wind and surf
had full sway. On the East End the high
sand hills and salt cellars which have
withstood the fury of many fierce blast,
were swept away, giving the sea full
sweep through the streets, carrying away
fences and insecure outbuildings before
it.
The track embankment of the street
railways westward to the Beach Hotel
rails were laying upon the beach while
the ties were either carried inland or
tossed like corks out to sea.
Henderson's saloon at the beach ter
minus of Center street was torn from it's
foundation and washed away. The old
bath house, known as the Deep-Water
Pavilion, and Ada Purdy's road house,
known as the Oleander Saloon, went the
same way, the inmates Of the latter place
having barely time to escape with their
lives from the pursuing surf, which at
one great toss tore the building from its
foundation and dashed it to pieces on the
yielding sands. Not a veStige OF the
building remained to mark the place
where it stood, except one Of the carpets,
which was found imbedded in the sand.
O'Keefe's Sea Breeze Saloon, aud, in
fact, every small building on the beach
was more or less damaged. The waters
came up on the Beach Hotel lawn, and it
seemed at one time as if they would in
wade the hotel. but no alarm was felt.
The grand new structure is as firm as hu-
man ingenuity could devise, and no dam
age whatever was sustained except to
the Shrubbery.
The Pagoda bath house and the Surf
bath house likewise stood the strain, the
Surf suffering little by the loss of the
stairways. The beach for miles was
strewn with debris, while great holes in
the sand testified to the force of the eddy
inc currents. On the bay the small ship
ping suffered to vast extent, no
less than thirty sloops and yachts
bearing evidences of the war of the winds
and bay Ten of these small vessels were
sunk and battered to pieces at their
moorings, while others parted cables and
were tossed high and dry ashore, after
pounding their sides out. Two of these
were thrown across the railroad tracks
in the end, fully half mile from the
wharf.
The bridges, both of the Gulf, Colorado
& Santa Fe and the Galveston, Houston &
Henderson railways, stood the strain
without damage, but near the point
where they unite with the island the
trestes were twisted and torn out of
shape. Consequently no trains could get
out until the Santa Fe got through at 3:10
this evening, when Master of Transporta-
ton Jim Phillips had the tracks again in
good working order. The streets to Six
teenth street east and to Eighth avenue
west were flooded, but, however, doing
no damage.
Telegraph wires were all down, and
Galveston for the time was cut off from
all communication with the outer world.
In the city the principal loss was in the
demolition of fences, out-hOuses, swing
ing signs and shrubbery. No estimate
can at present be made of the loss, which
is, however, so evenly distributed that it
will hardly be felt.