The evening times., 1900-10-13
AF''ERMATHOF FLOOD
A Weird Descripties, Of Conditions
at Stricken Galveston.
Mrs Fannie II. Ward, Member of
Miss Burton's Rec Cross staff, Tells
ences-A Worse Calamity Than Any
That Has Yet Been Recorded.


Miss Clara Barton's staff, has written
the following letter to The Times, from
Galveston, concerning the Red Cross
work in Texas:
when the Red Cross party left Wash
| ington, nearly a month ago, in response
to the first call of distress from Calves
! ton, 1t was my intention to write you al
once of current happenings in the track
of the storm. fastening to the field, we
found conditions infinitely worse than
had been described, and so much work
to do in the way of sorely needed imme-
date relief. that letter writing was al
| together out of the question. My prom
ised mite, however, can hardly have been
missed while hundreds of professional
| news -gatherers, presumably 'on the spot,
were flooding the country with informa =
| tion and misinformation concerning the
| great calamity AS for the misinforma-
| tion, it came about ao naturally as dur
| ing the Cuban war, when the noble army
| OF war correspondents figuratively fit,
| bled, and died on the safe and easy
| fields of Tampa and Key West.
| When things We're at their worst on
this small island of the Mexican Gu-f.
| ated for miles around, steamers aground
| on new sandbars thrown up by the storm.
! telegraph wires down, postal facilities
non est, and to reach this little island
! from anywhere outside was to run the
| gantlet of soldiers bayonets. our spe-
ciai correspondent may perhaps be ex-
! cIsed for disseminating his hearssy news
| from various vantage grounds on the
| mainland of Texas.
| Now that the worst is over and the
| news -gatherers gone their ways in search
/ Of fresh sensations, this may be added by
| one who has been in position to know
! whereof she speaks, namely, that the laIf
/ has not been told of the most fearful
| storm since Noahs day. and never viii
! be. The blood-curdling accounts Of the
J yellowest journals have not been exag-
! gerations, but on the contrary have fallen
| Tar short of the truth-simply because it
| is beyond the power of words TO portray J
| tho full horror of it. You may read fig
! ureS and statistics until dooms day with
| out being able to form an idea of the real
situation in Galveston.
Imagine, il you can the most thickly
| populated section of a beautiful city
| cloSely-built-up streets of handsome
! houses-swept clean as a parIor floor, ev-
| cry yestige of a thousand homes removed
| in moment, to be heaped in distant
| places as kindling wood and scattered
bricks. Every house that stands Today
In Galveston is house of mourning.
Every member of many families is mum
bered among the dead, and sadder yet are
the cases where one or two are left cut
of numerous households. Fancy yourself
sitting at home. as usual, some evening.
listening to eqUinozial wind and rain
when suddenly it IS discovered that the
Gulf of Mexico is stealing up into your
door-yard. AT the same time though
yod do not know it. the six-mile-wide
bay is creeping up in the other direction.
Higher and higher rise these two great
bodies of water. until. in an incredibly
short time, they meet and clash in the
centre OF the doomed city-then sweep
back again, carrying all before them.
Salt waters rush in at your door. eager
ior prey. You retreat to the upper story
TO find cyclone raging, the roof blown
away. the house tottering to It's fall,
Some of your family are buried under
the debris, the rest rush cut into the wild
right OF total darkness (the gas works
and electric light plant were among the
first to be demolished). raging waters Of
unknown depth in place of the familiar
streets, the icy current swirling with as
tonishing velocity, carrying trees, roofs,
timbers, dead bodies, a beating rain that
iacerates the flesh like a penitent's
scourge-shrieks, groans vain prayers for
help. rising above the fury OF the gale
One by one, your loved ones are torn
from your side Selling upon any float
ing object. perhaps you are carried far
out into tie measureleSs Gulf of Mexico
TO be dashed back with the returning tide
il you can manage to keep so long afloat
i have talked with scores of people
who suffered similar experience, some
of them chill ren and delicate girls. The
marvel is that any survived. All are
bruised and battered by flying debris,
with broken bones, and shattered nerves:
and today in Galveston are more than
hundred cases of nervous prostratfon
which will result in death-the aftermath
OF that awful night. In nearly every in
stance women were entirely denuded of
clothing by the combined force OF wind
and waves, and when found living or
dead, were naked as the minute they
were born. Think of the sick, the Grip
pied, the infrm, the feeble of populous
city in such desperate plight,
Heaven knows. you have heard Incl
dents enough; but I cannot forbear telling
you one or two that have come under my
personal observation. There is a beauti-
full little bride in Galveston, only a few
weeks married, who was honey-mooning
with her young husband in their new doll
house of a home, when the storm broke
Their house-che paternal wedding gift
furnished with all that love and wealth
cOutu SuSSSSt-HaS one or the many OF
which no trace can now be discovered
Suddenly the young couple found them
selves struggling in water up to their
necks, beaten about by huge bilioWs and
menaced by floating and flying debris De-
termined &. die together, if worse came
they clambered upon a bit of broken roof
and were whirlcd away in the darkness.
Presently the roof went to pieces and the
pair were wrenched apart. Hours later
somebody rescued the unconscious hus-
which was one of the few buildings com
paratively uninjured, and the good Sisters
resuscitated him.
Meanwhile the poor little bride was
swept away alone into the storm tossed
Gulf of Mexico, far beyond sight of land.
All night long she was beaten about by the
bilIows, but somehow managed to keep
herself afloas though chilled TO partial un-
consciousness: and with the morning tide
was brought back again-into the emptied
graveyard of st. Mary's as it fortunately
happened. Seeing the walls of building
she had just life enough left to call for
help. The grief-craZed husband, pacing
the corridors mourning for her whom he
believed to 5e lost, heard the cry-by some
mysterious soul sense rather than by NOR
tai ear-and insisted on going out to the |
rescue. To quiet him, though with 10 idea
that any living thing was in that swfrlipe
flood, the two or three men about the place
went with HIN. They found young Wom )
an stark naked. clinging to a board which
had temporarily moored itself against a
CoTk DAo~s~