The age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1897-1902, 1900-09-11
A GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION Of
THE D|REFUL CATASTROPHE

Houston, Tex, September 1o.-Richard
Spillane, a well-known Galveston newspa-
per man and day correspondent of the As
sociated Press in that city, who reached
Houston today after terrible experience,
gives the following account of the disaster
at Galveston:
Zone of the most awful tragedies of
modern times has visited Galveston. The
city is in ruins, and the dead will number
probably 1000 I am just from the city,
having been commissioned by the Mayor
and citizens to get in touch with the OUT
side world and appeal for help. Houston
was the nearest point at which working
together instruments could be found, the
wires, as we'll as nearly all the buildings,
between Galveston and the Gulf of Mexico
being wrecked. When I left Galveston
shortly before noon yesterday the citizens
were organizing for the burial of the dead,
distribution of food and all the necessary
work after period of disaster.
1.-THE wrecking of Galveston was wrought
by tempest SO terrible that no words
can adequately describe 1t, and by flood
which turned the city into a raging sea-
The weather bureau records that the wind
attained a velocity of eightyfour miles an
hour when the measuring instrument blew
away, SO it is impossible to tell the maxi
mum. The storm began at o'clock Satur-
day morning. Previous to that a great
storm had been raging in the gulf and bay.
The wind first came from the direction OF
the north. While the storm in the gulf
piled the water from the bay up on the
beach side of the city, the north wind
shifted about noon, and it became evident
thatt tbn noifxy IN ha Wis a6 wi
disaster. Hundreds of buildings on the
beach front were hurriedly abandoned
Every home was opened to the refugees,
black and white.
1.-THE wind was increasing constantly and
raining in torrents; the rain was so fierce
that it cut like knife. By 8 o'clock the
waters of the bay and gulf met, and the
city was soon submerged. The flooding Of
the electric light plant and the gas COM
panys plant left the city in darkness. To
go upon the streets was death. Roofs, cis-
terms, portions of buildings, telegraph poles
and walls were falling and the noise of the
wind and the crashing of the buildings
were terrifying in the extreme
.The wind and the waters rose steadily
from dark until las o'clock Sunday morn
ing. During all this time the people Of Gal
weston were like rats in traps. The higher
portions of the city was crowded, while the
lower part was submerged. To leave
house was to drown. To remain was to
court death in the wreckage. Such agony
was possibly never equalled by the people
in modern times. The waters began sud
denly to subside at Ills, and within twenty
minutes had gone down two feet and be-
fore daylight the inhabitants were partially
free from the flood. In the meantime the
wind had veered to the southeast, and very
few If any, buildings escaped injury. There
Is hardly habitable dry house in the city.
when the people who had escaped death
went out at daylight to view the wreck of
the tempest, and the floods, they saw some
horrible sights. In the three blocks from
Avenue N and Avenue 2, In Temenot
street, 1 saw eight bodies. Four corpses
were in one yard. The whole of the beaSS
front for three blocks from the gulf was
stripped of every vestige of habitation, the
dwellings, the great bathing establishnsnt,
the Olympian and every structure having
been carried out to sea or its ruins piled in
A pyramid far in the town. y.
'.''The first hurried glance over the city
showed that the largest structures, sES-
posed to be the most substantially bufie,
suffered the greatest The Orphans home,
at TWenty-first street and Avenue M, fell
like a house of cards, how many childrs1
and refugees are in the ruins can not De
ascertained. OF the sick at st. Mary's In
firmary, together with the attendants, only
eight are known to have been saved. The
Old Womans Home, ON Rosenter avenue,
collapsed; Trosenberg school house 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