Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1900-09-13
DEATH LIST GROWS.
Every Hour Brings News Of
Fresh Horrors From Texas.
CORPSES LINE CALVESTON'S STREETS
The City Is Still Flooded-vessela
Blown Far beyond High Water
Mark-WhOle Families Are
Wiped Out of Existence.


HOUSTON, Sept. 11.-Richard Spill
lane, we'll known Galveston newspa
per man, who reached Houston after 6
terrible experience, gives the following
account of the disaster at Galveston:
''The city is in ruins, and the deai
will number probably 5000. l am just
from the city, having been commissioned
by the mayor and citizens committee te
get in touch with the outside world and
appeal for help. Houston was the near.
est point at which working telegraph
instruments could be found, the wires as
we'll as nearly all the buildings between
here and the gulf of Mexico being
wrecked.
"When l left Galveston, the people
were organizing for the prompt burial of
the dead, distribution of food and all nec-
essary work after period of disaster.
'"The wreck of Galveston was brought
about by tempest so terrible that no
words can adequately describe its in
tensity and by flood which turned the
city into raging sea. The weather
bureau records show that the wind at
tained velocity of "a miles an hour
when the measuring instrument blew
away, SO it is impossible to tell what
2 O'Clock Saturday morning. Previous
to that a 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 up on the beach side
of the city the north wind piled the wa
ter from the bay on to the bay part of
the city.
About noon it became evident that the
city was going to be visited with disas-
ter. Hundreds of residences along the
beach front We're hurriedly abandoned,
the families fleeing to dwellings in high
er portions Of the city. Every home was
opened to the refugees, black or white.
The winds were rising constantly, and
it rained in torrents. The wind was so
fierce that the rain cut like a knife.
by o'clock the waters of the bay
and gulf met, and by dark the entire city
was submerged. The flooding of the cleo
trio light plant and the gas plants left
the city in darkness. To go upon the
streets was to court death. The wind
was then at cyclonic velocity, roofs, els
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 waters rose steadily from
dark until :45 o'clock Sunday morning
During all this time the people of Gal
weston were like rats in traps. The high
est portion of the city was four to five
feet under water, while in the great ma
jority of cases the streets We're sub
merged to depth of ten feet. To leave
a house was to drown. TO remain was
to court death in the wreckage. Such Il
night of agony has seldom been eQualed.
Without apparent reason the waters
suddenly began to subside at :45 a. M
Within 20 minutes they had gone down
two feet, and before daylight the streets
were practically freed of the flood wa
ters. In the meantime the wind had
vcered to the southeast
Very few if any buildings escaped in
jury. There is hardly habitable dry
house in the city. 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 sights
Imaginable. In the three blocks from
Avenue n to Avenue L in fremont
street l saw eight bodies. -Four corpses
were in one yard.
THE whole of the business front for
three blocks in from the gulf was strip
u
dwellings. the great bathing establish
ments, the Olympia and every structure
having been either carried out to sea or
its 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, sup
posed to be the most substantially built.
suffered the greatest
"'rhc Orphans home Twenty first
street and Avenue NJ, fell like house Of
cards. How many dead children and
refugees are in the ruins could not b.
ascertained.
.'Of the sick in st. Mary's iniirmary,
together with the attendants, only eight
are understood to have been saved.
The Old Woman's home. on Rosenberg
avenue, collapsed, and the Rosenberg
schoolhouse is a mass of wreckage. The
Ball high school is but an empty she'll.
crushed and broken. Every church in
the city. with possibly one or two exeep-
tions. 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.
M lfIoit b'fi ifttiNtt tHf
Catholic Orphan asylum down the is
land. but il seems impossible that II could
have withstood the hurricane. Ii il fell,
all the inmates Were no doubt lost, for
there was no aid within "A mile
1.-THE bay front from end 10 end is in
ruins Nothing but piling aud the wreck
~ great warehouses remain. The ele
waters lost all their superworks. and their
stocks are damaged by water.
"The life saving station at Fort Point
was carried away. the crew being swept
across the hay II miles to Texas City.
II saw Captain iIaines. and he told me
that his wife aud one of his crew were
drowned.
''fhe shore al Texas City contains
enough wreckage 90 rebuild a city. Eight
persons who Were swept across the hay
during the storm Were picked up there
alive. Five corpses were also picked
up. There were three fatalities In Texas
City. In addition 10 the living aud the
dead which the storm east up at Texas
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