The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-08-19

terrific force. So great was this force,
| in fact that the two granite monu-
ments which were placed at the foot
of fremont street to commemorate the
storm of 1900 were blown clear across
the Boulevard distance of more
than fifty feet.
In other places the iron posts have
been bent double and the granite cop
| ing on the seawall has been wrenche6
loose, some of these stones being car
ried n block or more
Wreckage Piled High.
The wreckage from the shattered
buildings, nearly all OF which We're OF
frame construction, Is piled high IN
all parts of the city. Telephone, tele-
graph and trolley poles. together with
their wires, make an indescribable
tangle which. in places, 1T will take
weeks to clear 1t is doubtful if any
of the public service corporations VIII
be able to resume operations for
month A few brick buildings were
wrecked but these are of the older
sort and in themselves not serious
loss. Not a new brick building IN the
city sustained more than trivial dam
age although practically all the show
windows were broken in and in some
Dlaces roofs torn off This occurred a
the Hotel Galvez, where several sec
tions of the tile roof were blown away
The total number of houses of all
KINDS, exclusive Oh SIlSuS, "1iIS'I WSiS
wrecked, is estimated at 500.
High Level Reduces Damage.
The work which mad been done III
the last fifteen years to raise the level
+ of the island had its share in the sal
walton of the city In one section OF
the residential district, near Twenty
Fifth and Avenue NJ. the water did not
reach the first floors of the houses and
even the household goods escaped
da mage.
One of the greatest losses to Gal
weston is the partial destruction CT
the causeway. This great concrete
brid ge-the one connecting link be-
tween the island and the mainland
was completed barely two years
ago. Both approaches, approximate
ing three thousand feet, are gone. The
east side of the causeway IS said to
have been torn away by one o. the
dredges which is believed to have
sunk subsequently out in the channel.
The other was battered down by
giant oil tank which floated away
from the Pierce-F ordyce refinery,
near Texas City. There were six of
these tanks, valued at from $4,000 to
$4,000 each and holding approx
mately $1,000 barrels of oil which
were lost. and but for this oil, which
tended to allay the height of the
waves. it is believed the loss in Texas
City would have been even greater.
The greatest loss of life known to
have been sustained at any place is
said to have occurred at Virginia
Point, at the western end of the
causeway. 1t was at this place that
the last interurban car out of Gal
weston was stalled at ? o'clock Mon
day afternoon. 1t had about fifty
persons aboard and when it appeared
the car could get no farther the peo-
pie made their way to the Virginia
hotel. The water continued to rise
about this structure until 2:3O o'clock
Tuesday morning, when it collapsed.
OF the seventy-five persons said to
have been in the hotel at the time,
not more than twenty-five were able
to make their way across the swirl of
water to a railroad tower situated on
somewhat higher ground. They spent
the night there and most of them
made their way back to La Marque
Wednesday. tzs1
Fifty Swept to Death.
J. w. Gross, who was severely in
jured in the destruction of the Vir-
ginia Point hotel of which he was the
proprietor, but succeeded in reaching
the railroad tower, would not say that
the fifty unaccounted for We're lost.
but said there was no other place
where they could have found safety.
A report in Galveston Wednesday
told of one man who had floated from
some point up the bay to Point Boil
var, on a bale of cotton. He was un-
conscious and taken to Sealey hospital
and 1t was suggested he might have
been one of those caught in the de-
struction of the Virginia Point hotel.
Army Camp Now Swamp.
In point of size, Texas City suffered
more from the terrible storm than
Galveston. This may have been due
to the fact that there were fewer sub
stantial buildings and to the further
g, l.
The first part of Texas City to be in
undated was the soldiers cauip, just
above the city This tract of land
which had been SO carefully drained
and on which the United States had
spent many thousands of dollars is
now levelled and reverted to a swamp.
Houston Loss Runs High
The damage felt at Houston will
run into far more money than was at
first anticipated. Even citizens of
Houston admit that the loss, both
public and private, viii approximate
ly rs per cent of the business houses
or residences escaped damage of some
sort. Much of this is trivial but in
the case of the downtown department
blown in and whose stocks of goods
damag by the torrentia1 rain it will
run into the thousands at least.
Wind Sways Great Buildings.
There are some who say that the
''eye" of the storm passed over Hous-
ton and that had there been water
such overwhelmed Galveston, the
town would have been wrecked. The
barometer reading at Houston was
lower than at Galveston, where the
minimum was but 2S.40, against 2S.21
in Houston. The wind at Houston is
variously estimated at from 90 to 100
miles an hour and persons who spent
Monday night i'll the downtown hotels