Little Falls herald., 1900-09-14

the city w1s going to be visited with
disaster. Hundreds Of residences along
tie 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.
by 8 o'clock the waters Of the gulf
and bay met and by dark the entire
city was submerged. The flooding of
the electric light plant and the gas
plants
Left the City In DarknesA
To go upon the streets was to court
death. The wind was then at cyclonic
velocity. roofs, cisserns, portions of
buildings, telegraph poles and walls
were falling and the noise Of the winds
and the crashing Of the buildings were
terrifying in the extreme. The wind
and water rose steadily from dark until
lO:45 o'clock Sunday morning. During
all this time the people Of Galveston
were like rats in traps. The highest
portion Of the city was four or five feet
under water, while in the great ma
joriry Of cases the streets were SUBJ
merged to depth Of 10 feet. To leave
a house was to drown. To remain was
to court der tn in the Wreckage.
without apparent reason the waters
suddenly began to subside at l:45 q. m.
Within 20 minutes they had gone down
two feet, and before daylight the streets
were pretty free of the food waters.
In the meantime the wind had veered
to the southwest. Very few, if any,
buildings escaped injury. There is
hardly habitable dry house in the
city.
Not Building Left.
1.-The whole Of the business front for
three blocks in from the gulf was
stripped Of every vestige Of habitation,
every structure having been either car
rled out to sea or it's ruins piled in a
pyramid far into the town, according
to the vagaries Of the tempest.
1.-The first hurried glance over the
city showed that the largest structures,
supposed to be the most substantially
built, suffered the greatest. The or
phans' home, Twenty-frst street and
Avenue M, fell like house of cards.
How many dead children and refugees
are in the ruins could not be ascer-
tanned.
"Of the sick in St. Mary's infrmary
and the attendants only eight are un-
derstood to have been saved. The old
women's home on Rosenberg avenue
collapsed. 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.
Enough Wreckage to Build . City.
"The bay front from end to end is in
ruins. Nothing but piling and the
wreck of great warehouses remain.
The elevators lost all their superworks
and their stocks are damaged by water.
The ifesavirg station at Fort Point
was carried away, the crew being swept
across the bay IA miles to Texas City.
The shore at Texas City contains
enough wreckage to rebuild city. In
addition to the living and the dead
which the storm cast up at Texas City,
caskets and coffins from one of the
cemeteries at Galveston were being
fshed out Of the water there.
1.-The cotton mills; the bagging fac
tory, the gas works, the electric light
works and nearly all the industrial
Establishments Of the city are either
wrecked OF crippled. The food left a
slime about one inch deep over the
whole city, and unless fast progress is
made in burying corpses and caroasses
of animals there is danger of pesti-
lence."