The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1900-09-21

HOUSION, TeXaS, sept. 1O.-Rtchard
Spillane 1as just arrived here and says.
"One of the most awful tragedies of
modern times has visited Galveston.
The city ia in ruins and the dead will
probably number a thousand. am
just from the city, having been COM
missioned by the Mayor and citizens
committee to get in touch with the out
side world and appeal for help. Houston
was the nearest point at which working
telegraph instruments could be found,
the wires as well as nearly all the
buildings between here and the Gulf
of Mexico being wrecked.
when l left Galveston shortly be-
fore noon yesterday the people were or
ganiZing Tor the prompt burial of the
dead distribution of food and all the
necessary work after a period of disas-
ter. The wreck of Galveston was
brought ABOUT by a tempest so terrible
that no words can adequately describe
it's intensity and by flood which turn
ed the city into a raging sea. The
Weather Bureau records show that the
wind attained velocity of eighty-foar
miles an hour when the measuring in
strument blew away, so it is impossible
to tell what the maximum was.
THE storm began about o'clock
Saturday morning. Previous to that
great storm had been raging in the gulf
and the tide was very high. The wind
at first came from the north and was
in direct opposition to the force from
the gulf. While the storm in the gulf
piled the water upon the beach side OF
the city the north wind piled the water
from the bay on the bay part of the
city.
About neon it became evident that
the city was going to be visited with
disaster. hundreds of residences along
the beach front were hurriedly aban-
doned, the families fleeing to dwellings
in higher portions of the city. Every
home was opened to the refugees, black
or white. The wind was rising con-
stantly and rain fell in torrents. The
wind was 81 fierce that the rain cut like
a knife by o'clock the waters of the
gulf and bay met and by dark the en-
tire city was submerged. The flooding
of the electric light plant and the gas
plants left the city in darkness. To go
out into ihe streets was to court death.
The wind was then at cyclonic velo
city. Roots, cisterns, portions of build
ings, telegraph poles and walls were
falling AMI the noise of the wind and
the crashing of the buildings was ter
rifying in the extreme. The wind and
waters rose steadily from dark until
1:45 o'clock Sunday morning. During
all this time the people of Galveston
were like 1ats in traps. The highest
portion Of he city was four to five feet
under water, while in the great majori-
| ty of cases the streets were submerged
!, to depth of ten feet. To leave house
/ was to drown. To remain was to court
death in the wreckage.
"Such a night of agony has seldom
been equaled Without apparent reason
the water began to subside at 1:45 a. m.
Within two minutes it had gone down
| tow feet and before daylight the streets
were practically freed of the flood wa
ters. In the mentime the wind had
veered to the southeast. Very few If
any buildings escaped injury. There is
hardy habitable dry house left.
When the people who had escaped
death went out at daylight to view the
work of the tempest and the floods
they saw the most horrible sight i'm
aginable. In the three blocks from ave-
nue. N TO avenue P, on fremont street,
I saw eight bodies. Four corpses were
in one yard.
1.-THE whole of the business front for
| three blocks in from the gulf was strip
ped of every Yestige of habitation, the
dwellings, the great bathing establish
ments, the Olympia and every struc-
ture having been either carried out to
sea or it's ruins piled in pyramid far
| into the town, according to the Vaga-
ries Of the tempest.
"The first hurried glance over the city
showed that the largest structures,
supposed to be the most substantially
built suffered the most. The Orphans
Home. Twenty first and avenue M.
fell like a house of cards. How many
| dead children and refugees are in the
ruins could not be ascertained OF the
sick in st. Mary's Inf1rmary together
with the attendants, only eight are un-
derstood TO have been saved The Old
Women's Home on Rosenberg avenue
collapsed. The Rosenberg schoolhouse
is a mass of wreckage. The Ball High
School is but an empty shell, crushed
and broken. Every church in the city,
with possibly one or two exceptions, is
in ruins.
"At the forts nearly all the soldiers
are reported dead, they having been In
temporary quarters which gave them
no protection against the tempest or the
flood No report has been received from
the Catholic Orphan Asylum down the
island, but 1t seems impossible that II
could have withstood the hurricane, II
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES