Gilpin observer., 1900-09-13

bay part of the city.
about noon it became evident thai
the city was going to be visited will
disaster. Hundreds of residences
along the beach front We're hurriedl.S
abandoned, the families fleeing to
dwellings in higher portions of the
city. Every home was opened to the
refugees, black or white. The wine
was rising constantly, and rain fell in
torrents. The wind was so fierce tina.
the rain cut like II knife.
by 3 o'clock the waters of the guilt
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 darkness. TO &C
out on the streets was to court death
The wind was then at cyclonic veloci
ty, roofs, cisterns, portions of build
ings, telegraph poles and walls We're
falling, and 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 rats in traps. The highest
portion of the city was four or five
feet under water, while in the great
majority of cases the streets We're sub
merged to n depth of ten feet. To
leave Il house was to drown. To re
main was to court death in the wreck
age.
such night of agony has seldom
been equaled. Without apparent rea-
son the waters suddenly began to sub
side at 1:45 n. M. Within two min
utes they had gone down two feet, and
before daylight the streets were prac-
tically freed from the flood waters. In
the meantime the wind had yeered to
the southeast.
Very few, if any buildings escaped
injury. There is hardly a habitable
dry house in the city. When the peo-
pie who had escaped death went out at
daylight to view the work of the tenn
pest and the floods, they saw the most
horrible sight imaginable. In the three
blocks from Avenue n to Avenue Z, in
fremont street. | saw eight bodies.
Four corpses in one yard.
'The whole of the business front
for three blocks in from the gulf was
stripped of every vestige of habitation,
the dwellings. the great bathing estab-
lishments, the Olympia, and every
structure having been either carried
out to sea or its ruins piled in a pyra-
mid far into town. according to the
vagarieS 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 NJ. fell like house of
cards. How many dead children and
refugees are in the ruins could not be
ascertained.
''Of the sick in st. Mary's Infirmary,
together with the attendants, only
eight are understood to have been
saved.
"The Old Women's Home on Rosen-
burg avenue. collapsed. The Rosen-
burg school house is mass of wreck
age. The Ball high school is but an
empty shell, crushed and broken. Ev-
cry church in the city, with possibly
one or two exceptions, is in ruins
AT the fort near;y all the soldiers
are reported dead, they having been in
temporary quarters which gave them
no protection against the tempest or
the flood.
The bay front from end to end is
in ruins. Nothing but piling and the
wreck of the great warehouses remain
The elevators lost all their superworks.
and their stocks are damaged by water.
THE shore at Texas City contains
enough wreckage to rebuild n city.
Eight persons who We're swept across
the bay during the storm We're picked
up there alive. Five corpses were also
picked up. There We're three fatali-
ties in Texas City. In addition to the
living and the dead which the storm
cast up at Texas City. caskets and cof-
fins from one of the cemeteries Mt Gal
weston We're being fished out of the
waters there to-day.
Eight ocean steamers were torn
from their moorngs and stranded In
the bay. The Kendall Castle was car
ried over the flats from the Thirty
third street wharf to Texas City, and
lies In the wreckage of the Inman pier
Some of the stories of escapes are
miraculous. William Nisbett n cotton
man, was buried in the ruins of the
Cotton Exchange saloon and when dug
out In the morning. had no further in
jury than few bruised fingers.
"Dr. $. o. Young. secretary OF the
Cotton Exchange. was knocked sense
less when his house collapsed, but was
revived by the water and was carried
ten blocks by the hurricane
"a woman who had just given birth
to n child was carried from her home
to n house n block distant, the men
who We're carrying her having to hold
her high above their heads, as the
water was five feet deep when she
was moved.
1T will take II week to tabulatc the
dead and the missing and to get any
thing near an approximate idea Of the
money loss. 1t Is safe to assume that
one-half of the property of the city IL
wiped out and that one half of the resi-
dents have to face absolute poverty"
Of 40 men stationed at Fort San ia