The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1909-07-04
And All a 5lunder.


priest started and n ore was up in the
shabby old building, lat he heard d
stirring I'm the room # the fever pa
tient. Strange, he 1lought, that the
man had survived the night AS Kir-
win opened the door the man on the bed
grOaned and thTeshed about. The priest
saw that the patient was fully con-
scious.
How do you feel, my poor fellow?"
the priest asked
"Oh, I've got an awful head" the
man replied.
The young priests brow knitted.
Head? Head?" he repeated as if
questioning himself what it meant
Then it dawned upon him.
What" he asked feebly, had you
been drinking?"
I'D have been all right" the sufferer
responded, IF I had stuck to straight
stuff, but I got hold of two bottles of
claret and put them on top Of the whis-
ky"
There were a few stragglers abroad
when the young clergyman walked
home He didn't walk in the middle of
the road, either. He stopped every
straggler, whether the strag gler tried
to dodge or not.
Don't you believe" he told each and
every one of them, that we've got yell
low fever in this town. We have some
mild fever, and these doctors have
frightened US stiff. That's all"
And he was right. The doctors had
Numbered. GuiteTas, the worlds great
est authority on yellow fever, had blum
dered worst of all There was no more
yellow fever in Galveston than there
was at the north pole. Ten thousand
persons were down with dengUe, a mild
fever, from which every one of the 10000
recovered, and that was all City, state
and national guarantees had done hun
dreds Of thousands, if not millions. of
dollars of damage, but there was no
help. All of which shows that the real
danger is not so bad as it seems to be.
But there was danger enough, real
and fancied, in the Galveston storm, one
of the greatest storms in the history of
the world, a tragedy that cost more than
5000 lives, destroyed property valued at
more than $4,000 900 and wrecked the
city. A big storm from the north and
a hurricane from the West Indies met
over the city on Sept. s, 1900, and strug-
gled for supremacy. The storm from
the north piled the waters of the bay
over the business part of the city early
in the day, flooding the streets and
blocking transportation. Then the hur-
waters up on the gulf side of the island.
In the afternoon the waters of the bay
and the gulf met. 1t was blowing 100
miles an hour. The city was sub
merged, the waters were rising rapidly,
houses were topping and the wind was
increasing in intensity every minute.
When the hurricane reached 120 miles
an hour the wind registering instru-
ments failed. How hard the wind blew
after that no one knows. The storm did
not reach its height until long after
midnight 1t blew so terrifically that
it staggers creduHty to state the facts.
An ocean steamship of more than 1000
tons was driven across country twenty
two miles inland and landed against the
side of big embankment.
The steamship Roma was driven
through the four bridges spanning Gal
weston bay. Three of these bridges were
railroad structures, and the other. with
concrete piers, belonged to the county
How that steamship went through tim
beTs and concrete without being ripped
to junk is a mystery of mysteries but
the Roma later on was fiOated and now
sails the sea. Ocean liners sailed that
day and night where liners never sailed
before or since. Railroad cars, trucks
and all, were carried from their tracks
and scattered broadcast over the prai-
RE. The combined force of wind and
water lifted vast lengths of steel rail-
rail weighing seventy pounds to the
yard-and wound these rails up like
corkscreWs.