The Rice belt journal. (Welsh, Calcasieu Parish, La.) 1900-19??, 1915-08-27


recently completed and detailed TO
service in the Houston ship channel
The Sam Houston is standing sub
merged to the decks at San Leon and
part of her crew is still aboard. The
others are safe in Galveston, having
been carried into the city by Captain
Olsen in the United States engineer
ing bureaus launch, the Victoria.
The San Jacinto is aground at Red
Fish reef and her crew is safe and
most of them are still aboard. Both
dredges will be floated within few
days and ready for service again soon.
In letter addressed to Mayor Ben
Campbell of Houston Thursday, Major
General ]. F. Bell, in charge Of Texas
City, urges that the travel of people
from Houston to Texas City and Gal
weston be prohibited unless they are
concerned in the welfare of relatives
in either city. The letter follows:
Colonel H. B. Moore of Texas City
showed me a letter he had addressed
to you concerning the travel Of per
sons on special business between
Houston and Galveston in both d.
rections.
ION the score of humanity, no one
can possibly object to aiding persons
concerned for the welfare Of their
families or their business, no matter
where located, but in addition TO such
persons travelling on legitimate bust
ness, highways and railways have
been crowded with persons inspired
by nothing more important than curl
osity to see what damage had been
done at Galveston and Texas City. I'm
der conditions now prevailing at both
places such persons are a serious
nuisance and | wish to supplement
Colonel Moore's request that all un,
necessary travel between Houston and
Galveston and Texas City be discOur.
aged.
Automobiles can not cross the
bridges on wagon roads over Clear
creek and Dickinson bayou, and must
necessarily travel over the right of
way of the International and Great
Northern and over railway bridges
spanning those streams. They be-
come a serious menace to life and
cause great delay in railway traffic.
81 am reliably informed that the
civil authorities of Galveston are re-
fusing to permit all persons coming
there without valid excuse to land.
u. f. Bell,
Major General United States Army
in Charge at Texas City"
Houston, Textile great hurricane
which struck Galveston, the gulf coast
and Houston, continuing through Mon
day night and Tuesday morning, was
just as severe in velocity, if not more
so, than the memorable 1900 storm,
and it is likely many lives have been
lost and millions OF dollars of damage
to property done
AS darkness melted into gray and
dreary dawn Tuesday morning, it re-
vealed to Houston a spectacle that
sleepless thousands had only guessed
at through the long hours of the wild
est night within the memory of the
| Oldest inhabitant
Dropping .27 inch below the lowest
| barometric reading recorded at Gal
weston during the storm of Septem-
Der 8, 1900, and registering the third
! lowest barometric reading ever known
to have been taken anywhere, the
trough of the storm of Monday night
passed Houston almost exactly at AIS
o'clock Tuesday morning with a wind
velocity of 10 miles per hour, sus.
! tanned for an entire minute. During
that minute 1t is impossible to con.
| lecture the maximum velocity that
may have been attained for any series
of consecutive seconds.
The maximum wind velocity at and
near o'clock for five consecutive
minutes was 80 miles, occurring at
the time of the passage Of the axis of
the storm center.
Fears are felt for the inhabitants of
the gulf coast towns and it is hoped
that the many thousands there reached
safety in time. Warning of the trop-
ical storm was given out two days be-
fore it arrived, and it is likely the PEG.
pie needed the warning.
Property damage and severe injury
to the cotton crop is reported from in
land towns in the storm section.
At Eagle Lake the fuel tank and
smokestack of the Eagle Lake Rice
Mil were blown down.
At Elgin. the Christian church and
large warehouse were demolished
and minor damage done elsewhere.
Damage to property and merchan-
disc at Rosenberg amounted to $4,000.
Sinner reports the cotton crop prac.
tically wiped out in that section as is
the case at Hallettsville, Bastrop and
Sealy.
At Sealy, a general store was I'M
rooted and goods badly damaged.