Thousands Died in their Efforts to Save Others—Houses and Human Beings
Floating on the Tide—An Army of Orphans—Greatest Catastrophe in Our
History.
“When did you first realize that you were in danger?” That, ordinarily,
would seem to be a foolish question to put to a man who had escaped
death as it rode on the storm, and yet it was not a foolish question,
but the natural one. For the Galveston people had for years argued out
the question of the danger attending the living on the island. True,
Indianola, awful even now in memory, stood out as an alarm to those who
live down by the sea. True, there had been storms and storms in
Galveston. True, there were people on the great mainland who contended
that wind and water would bring disaster to Galveston whenever the two
acted in concert and from the right direction.
But the answer to the Indianola alarm was that the situation of that
unfortunate town exposed it to a storm fury; that it was a fair mark;
that it was almost level with the water and all that. The fact that
there had been storms and storms at Galveston only confirmed the people
in their security. For as each had passed away without carrying any
great number of lives with them, why should not this do the same?
As to the people on the mainland who had prophesied disaster, why, they
were merely timid and ignorant people. Therefore the question “when did
you realize that you were in danger” was a reasonable one. And the
answer was the same in nearly every case. There might have been a
difference as to the moment when these people, penned like rats in a
cage, first felt the terror of impending death, but invariably the
answer was that the storm was almost at its height before the
realization came. In many cases only the falling houses brought the
realization.
One little girl at a grocery store out on avenue P, from which street to
the Gulf, the storm swept the island like a broom, answered me: “Mother
and my eight little brothers and sisters were upstairs, and I went down
to see what the water was doing in the store. You see we live upstairs
over the store. My papa is dead a long time ago. When I went down my
brother went with me and the water was half way up the counter. But that
didn’t scare us, because we have seen high water and heard the winds
before. Well, we went back and in a few minutes we were down again.
“Then the counter was floating. Brother said not to tell mother, but I
did. Then we saw a house tumble down and we heard people crying. We got
scared then and me and mamma prayed. We prayed that one of us would not
be drowned if the little children were not drowned, because one of us
would have to be their mother.”
The maternal love was uppermost. But the love of that little girl for
her little brothers and sisters, as she told me the story in her simple
way, passeth in greatness all understanding.
“I FELT THAT THE END HAD COME.”
“When did you think you were in real danger?” I asked of a merchant.
“Not until Ritter’s house went down and I saw the waters rapidly
climbing the walls. We had passed through the terrible storm of 1875,
and had lived. Since then the island has been raised five feet or more.
Why should we not have felt easy? But when the wind and waves began to
show their fury, when I saw these extra five or more feet covered by a
raging torrent which raced hither and thither, I felt that the end had
come. Up the waters came about the fence—up they came and covered the
hedge. Up they came and knocked at the door.
“Yet I still thought the end would be reached. We had been told that the
height of the storm would be at 9 o’clock. At 5 and 6 and 7 the waters
continued to climb and the winds to take on new strength. At the last
hour they were at the door. What must come, then, at 9? My heart fell
then. I had peered out of the window and saw the dreadful enemy assault
the house. Then agonized people were heard. It was dark and the spray
sped in sheets. Yet it was light enough to see now and then. People in
boats and wading came along. Their houses were gone. Mine rocked like a
cradle, and I felt the end had come.” Thus said another man: “What were
your feelings?” “Nothing but that of complete resignation. I have read
much in books of the tableaux of the past appearing to the human mind on
the eve of man’s dissolution. In no instance have I found that the
survivors of this terrible thing remembered the past. Some were
frightened and simply shrieked and laid hold of anything that would
relieve them from the embraces of the water. Some were frightened and
prayed for mercy. Some were frightened into dumb resignation, partaking
of dumb indifference.”
NOBLE DEEDS IN TIME OF DISASTER.
In all great catastrophes I have yet to know of one that some special
act of selfishness and brutality did not occur. There is hardly a great
wreck recorded in which is not depicted the brute who pushed women from
boats or from spars. In all I have heard of the thousands of incidents
connected with this storm, not an instance of that selfishness which
would cause one person to deprive another of his means of escape has
occurred. Thousands of instances of devotion of husband to wife, of wife
to husband, of child to parent and parent to child can be mentioned.
One poor woman with her child and her father was cast out into the
raging waters. They were separated. Both were in drift and both believed
they went out in the Gulf and returned. The mother was finally cast upon
the drift, and there she was pounded by the waves and debris until she
pulled into a house against which the drift had lodged. During all that
frightful ride she held to her 8–months-old babe, and when she was on
the drift pile she lay upon her infant and covered it with her body,
that it might escape the blows of the planks. She came out of the ordeal
cut and maimed. But the infant had not a scratch.
Another man took his wife from one house to another by swimming until he
had occupied three. Each fell in its turn, and then he took to the
waves. They were separated and each, as the persons above mentioned,
believed they were carried to sea. Strange to say, after three hours in
the water he heard her call, and finally rescued her.
It is not necessary to go on and recite these instances, for there were
thousands, each showing that in time of danger at least the best
sentiments in man’s nature are aroused. It can be safely guessed that
one-half of those who perished, died in their effort to aid others. The
trite expression of “man’s inhumanity to man” has no place in all that
may be written or spoken of this great tragedy.
DIRECTION OF THE STORM.
It is not at all remarkable that of all the statements in regard to the
details of this storm no two persons can be found who agree on the
direction of the wind and the currents. All agree that the most terrible
blows which the town received came from the point of the compass which
may be spoken of as between northeast and east. There are those who
declare that first the wind was almost from the north. Then it veered
till it was almost east, and then settled down to its herculean efforts
from a point between the two; and yet there are others who say that it
came from all directions at different times and prove it by the loss of
windows in their houses.
These waves came in from the Gulf. They filled the bay. The water chased
across the island, met the waves and then it seems there was a battle
between the two elements. For the currents ran criss-cross. They went
down one street, up another street and across lots. They seized a house
here and placed it there. They seized a house there and placed it here.
Men were carried to sea. Men were carried down the island. Men were
carried across the bay by it. No chart can be even dreamed of their
peculiarities. The wind lashed the water and it fled. That was all there
was in it, and it fled in every direction, carrying on its bosom a
shrieking people. It carried too, houses whole, houses in halves, houses
in kindling wood.
The winds dipped and seized the debris and hurled it on. The air was
filled with missiles of every kind. The water held them and threw them
from wave to wave. The winds grasped them as they were thrown and hurled
them further. Stoves, bath tubs, sewing machines, slates from
roofs—these were as light in the hand of the two giants, wind and water,
now in their fury, as the common match would be in the hand of the
strong man.
From the northeast it is generally conceded the storm came. Galveston
island runs nearly east and west. So it will be seen that it had a clean
sweep from end to end of it. The streets are numbered across the island.
They are lettered as they run with the island, east and west. For
instance, the street running east and west nearest the bay is A street.
Then there is B, and so on toward the Gulf. P and Q streets may be said
to be two-thirds across the island, that is to say, they are
three-quarters of a mile from the bay and a quarter of a mile from the
Gulf. This is not an accurate statement and is only given to illustrate.
Between Q street and the Gulf were hundreds and hundreds of houses.
While many were fine mansions, the great majority of them were the
houses of the poor.
HAMMERED INTO SHAPELESS MASSES.
Coming down the island from the east, the storm struck these
habitations.
It was in this area, east and west, from one end of the town to the
other, it did its worst. The large houses were overthrown. Where they
fell they were hammered into shapeless masses. The small ones were taken
up. A man can take two eggs and mash them against each other. The waters
took the remnants and pushed them forward. One street of buildings would
go down. That would be next to the Gulf. The timbers were hurled against
another street. It would go down. The debris of the two would attack the
third. The three would attack the fourth, and thus on till Q street was
reached. Here the mass lodged.
It is said by some, though I know nothing of it, that about it is the
backbone, or high part of the island. The great mass of matter became
heavy. It must have dragged upon the ground as the water here could have
only been five to seven feet deep. But this would not have stopped it,
had the last street to be assaulted, Q street or Q½ street, not
interposed. The houses here were rather large and strong. This battering
ram made by the winds and worked both by the winds and the water, met
with resistance from the houses and was impeded by its own weight, which
dragged it on the bottom. Its efforts at destruction became more and
more feeble. The houses stood, though wrecked. The debris climbed to the
very eaves.
But the more that came, the heavier the mass became. And lo! the very
assailant became the defender! For, piling higher and higher—piling
higher and higher by the addition of houses lately splintered, by the
addition of everything from a piano to a child’s whistle, there was a
wall built against the great waves which rolled in from the Gulf, and
thereby the territory lying between the bulwark and the bay, was
protected to some extent. True, the casual observer will think as he
looks even up and down the main streets of the town, that very little
protection was given.
A BULWARK OF DEAD PEOPLE.
But few lives were lost, in comparison, in this district, and while the
stores were flooded and houses toppled over by the winds and undermined
by the water, yet that bulwark made of dead people and all they had
struggled for and owned in this life, kept back the savage waves from
the Gulf and saved the rest of the town. Looking at this wall, from
which, as I write, come the odors of decomposition, climbing it, as this
correspondent has done, he is sure in his mind that if it had not been
formed not as many people of Galveston Island would have escaped as on
that day when Pompeii was shut out from the eyes of the world by the
veil of ashes.
These are speculations. In years to come men may be able in talk of this
greatest of catastrophes in the cool, deliberate way which will admit of
reasonable hypotheses as to the causes of the results, but they cannot
do it now. The wind blew from the east. The currents were criss-cross.
My God, it was awful. And that is as far as you can get with any of
those left. For they know no more. They know that the wind blew. They
know the waves rolled. They know, or most of them do, that they lost
dear ones, and that is all. The hydrographer of the future may tell us
all.
But as far as such people of North Texas, as I am, they will leave it to
him. He may know the currents and the winds, and tell to the
satisfaction. But he will never tell of these horrors. I cannot in the
present. I may not be able to do it in the future. When the story of the
funeral pyres and the burials at sea, and the reasons for both, are
explained—when the pictures are given of the rescued, hunting for the
dead—then indeed if all are drawn as they are—natural and
unstained—another monstrosity in news paper life will have arisen.
GALVESTON SAFE NOW.
No man—scientist or mere citizen—is authority upon the wondrous winds
and ties that reduced the island of Galveston to an incomprehensible pot
pourri of devastation. All is guess work, behind which there is neither
science nor common sense. As far as a deliberate proposition evolved by
a fair measure of judgment in which there enters as little of egotism as
is possible with human beings, I would rather trust the guesser than the
scientist.
As I begin the story at nightfall, the lightning is illuminating the
bank of clouds massed over the Gulf horizon. For the past half hour I
have looked upon the flashes, and those around me wondered if it were to
come again. The “it,” of course, means the visitation of last Saturday
night. They look anxiously around as the streaks of gold and silver
illumine the sky at quick intervals.
My friends are those who went through the awful experience of the
cataclysm. I know as well as mortal man can know any thing that this
island is no longer a target for the elements. I know that a target like
this devastated island could no longer invite the shafts of the
elements, even if the elements were endowed with human or divine
intelligence. And I know in the simple faith of humanity that the God
who “plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm” would
reach out with his omnipotent arm and throttle the agencies of nature if
they should again aggravate wind and wave to vent their wrath upon these
desolate shores.
I know that if the sorrows of this community, what remains of it, have
thrilled humanity, they must have touched the wellsprings of divine
mercy and sympathy, and that the helpless victims who have survived the
tragedy of this moment may feel safe from another attack from the
remorselessness of the storm.
LIGHTNING FLASHES IN DARKNESS.
Galveston, stricken and bleeding, is safe from the wrath of all powers,
human or divine. The vivid lightnings may cleave the sleepless waves of
the sea and the thunders may play at will among the fantastic clouds in
the sky. Galveston, soothed and compassed by the tenderness of mankind,
is veiled in the folds of heaven’s mercy, and the shrieking tempest is
now but a whisper from the sky, the angry wave but the gentle falling of
tears from above the stars.
It is so hard to write the story or a chapter of it without feeling the
power that appalls human intelligence, just as it is hard to
disassociate overwhelming sorrow from that broad sympathy which we do
not understand, but which never fails to nestle close to human misery.
Call it what you may, it is part of human life, and its presence comes
when disaster overwhelms to bring humanity in the presence of God.
Who can dispute this in the presence of the all-pervading mystery of the
storm? Who can laugh to scorn the sympathy whose manifestations have
already reached the widows and orphans, whose desolate lives now find
comfort from the realms above? This is not a matter of appealing to
emotion. I have before me this minute four rings. The man who brings
them tells me that they were taken from rigid fingers, among the 700 who
on last Monday were sunk to rest amid the borderless fathoms of the sea.
He says they may be the means of identification of three lost ones. No;
there can be no identification; but who can tell the tender secrets
which these circlets pledged? Identification is impossible deep down
among the mysteries of the sea.
The tragedy grows greater every moment. The romances dead to the world,
the grief lost beneath the wave or carried to the vapors above the
earth, the aching hearts soothed by lasting peace, the tired souls in
the arms of endless rest, the ambitions stilled by the calm which
banishes the anguish of life’s dreary struggle—it matters not what these
rings may bring to mind—we are yet confronted with the loss of the
thousands who shall never again press these wave-kissed shores. The
sentiment of this people is, God rest every one who sleeps beneath the
wave, and gather to everlasting peace the ashes of all whose funeral
pyres were built of these shattered homes.
A DAY OF ANGUISH.
It has been a day of anguish like all the days of this week have been.
There has been no cessation of tear-stained faces appearing here and
there to tell of the lost. And it is a wonder if the end of this sad
divulgence will ever come. A motherless boy or a fatherless girl, a now
childless mother or father, or whatever it may be, they still come to
tell of their woe, and the stolid men who glide over the water or who
search the shore, still bring in the swollen and unrecognizable victims
of the storm. It will end some day, and agonizing hearts may rest the
painful throbbings of this hour.
It matters not how great the numbers of the dead, they are numerous
enough to shock the sympathies of the world, and they are gone forever.
But we fear to look upon the sea, lest some heartless wave shall bring
to view the cold, stark form of somebody whom somebody loved. The
victims are still growing into larger thousands, and the bereft are
still coming in to tell of losses. It is a continued story of anguish
and death, such as Texas has never known before and will never know
again.
It is needless to repeat the sad discoveries which every day brings
forth. It is said that every wave of the sea has its tragedy, and it
seems to be true here. In Galveston it has ceased to be anxiety for the
dead, but concern for the living. The supreme disaster, with its
overwhelming tale of death and destruction, has now abated to lively
anxiety for the salvation of the living.
Men are at work clearing the streets of piles of timber and refuse. Men
are beginning to realize that the living must be cared for. It is now
the supreme duty. There is much work to be done, and it is being done.
Women and children are being hurried out of the city just as rapidly as
the limited facilities of transportation will permit. The authorities
and committees are rational and idleness is no longer permitted. There
is an element with an abundance of vital energy, who intend to save the
town, and the town is being saved.
WORK RAPIDLY PUSHED.
Burying the dead, feeding the destitute, cleaning the city and repairing
wrecks of all characters is under fair headway and will be pushed as
rapidly as men can be found to do the work. The great utilities of the
city are being repaired to a state of usefulness, men are in demand, and
workers are coming to engage in the duty of restoration. Life is
beginning to supersede death, and there is apparent everywhere a desire
to save the city and rebuild it. Before another week has passed, the
listlessness of mourning people will have been changed into a lively
interest in life, and as this becomes so, Galveston will begin to
realize just what the world expects of her.
Colonel W. L. Moody reached Galveston on Friday night, returning from
New York. He was in New York when the news of the storm reached there
and he immediately started for home.
He had determined before he reached here that he would rebuild
everything he had which had been damaged by the storm, and he was hoping
that telegraphic communication would be restored so that the work of
relieving the distress might be rendered more efficient and so that
people might wire for the material necessary to repair and rebuild their
houses.
When asked for a statement as to his intentions, he said:
“I was in New York when the news of the storm came, and intended to
start for home the last of this week, but immediately changed my plans
and left for Galveston at once. The people of this country have
responded generously, liberally, to the cry for assistance; the disaster
is appalling and appeals to the feelings and sympathy of mankind. And
the country has responded liberally, as I said, even before they knew or
appreciated the extent of the ruin and its consequences.
“The first news we received was very mild compared with what followed.
Galveston was cut off from communication with the world, and the story
of the storm was but partially told. The further along I got on my
journey home, the fuller became the information in regard to the storm
and we learned more and more of the greatness of the disaster. The fact
that the world responded so freely to the first appeal is gratifying and
inspires us with confidence in humanity. Those who have suffered from
the storm will be cared for by a generous and sympathetic public. The
prompt and generous aid is a beautiful thing.
DAMAGE WILL BE REPAIRED.
“What of the future? Galveston will be rebuilt; it will be stronger and
better than ever before. On my way home I stated that I would restore my
property, whatever the damage might be, as quickly as money and men
would do it, if I was the only man to take that course; and I
furthermore said that I believe I knew and understood what the feeling
of the business community of Galveston was in this respect and that I
had voiced it.
“At Texas City I met a woman from Kansas City. She was demoralized by
what she had passed through and seen and she declared that Galveston
would never be rebuilt; that no one would be foolish enough to again
build in a place which had been so storm swept.
“Answering her, I said that she did not know what she was talking about;
that Galveston would be rebuilt because it was necessary to have a city
here; that if the storm had swept the island bare of every human
habitation and every structure and had left it as barren as it was
before civilized man set foot upon it, still men would come here and
build a city, because a port was demanded at this place. ‘And why should
we not restore our city?’ I asked. ‘It has been visited by the severest
storm on record. As it has withstood that storm, partially, why should
we hesitate to rebuild? Why should we consider it less safe than another
place? Can you conceive that another such a storm is more likely to
strike at that exact spot again in a thousand years? Can you tell me any
spot on earth, on hill or dale, on mountain or plain, on which you can
guarantee me any immunities? If so, I would like to go there. If I were
in the accident insurance business, I would rather insure a man against
storm in Galveston than to insure a man in New York against accident on
the railroads. You are now on your way to Kansas City. Do you know that
you will reach there safely? Do you know that you may not be pitched
into some river and drowned, or being only half drowned be burned to
death?’
WILL BUILD BETTER THAN BEFORE.
“I slept at my home last night with as great a sense of security and
safety as I ever have felt during my residence in this city,” Colonel
Moody continued. “There may be some people who will leave here, but
there will be enough people left here who will rebuild their properties
and go ahead with the city to form the nucleus for its future growth. We
will build better than before, and the city will be better and stronger
and safer than ever.
“The railroads are leading off with this better construction; they will
build a double track steel bridge. Every man who builds in this city
hereafter will build better and stronger than before, and the weaker
structures will be weeded out. We will have better building regulations,
and men will not be permitted, if they would, to construct faulty
buildings.
“Some people may say, ‘Oh, Moody can afford to make this talk; he is
planted down here and can not get away.’ But let me tell you I could get
away very easily if I wanted to. The greater portion of what I hope I
own is not in Galveston, but is scattered throughout the State. It is in
the hands of merchants throughout Texas to whom we have made advances on
cotton. I could get away very easily if I had any desire to do so; in
fact, I believe I could liquidate and get out of town about as easily as
any man in it.
“So far as our business and property are concerned, the bank is running
along with unimpaired facilities. I have had an architect at work all
day preparing for the immediate restoration of the bank building, the
compress buildings and my other property. The compress machinery is
intact, and we will be pressing cotton again within a week. Some of the
partition walls in the cotton warehouses were blown out, but we will
have a force of men at work immediately and will have them rebuilt
before it is realized. And the walls will be better than they were
before, because they were originally constructed by contract, while I am
now having them rebuilt myself by day’s work.
MOST MIRACULOUS ESCAPE.
“The people of Texas have not lost confidence in Galveston and have not
manifested a disposition to quit the city. In to-day’s mail we received
bills of lading for three hundred bales of cotton shipped to us since
the storm.”
The most miraculous escape from the storm reached one of the newspapers
in a roundabout way. An employe of the paper was coming to work when he
overheard a few words passing between a couple of men talking on the
street. He heard enough to elicit his interest and made inquiries. One
of the men told him that an old German, whose name he did not know, had
been picked out of the debris at Sherman square Saturday evening after
having laid there a week.
People going by heard a sound which seemed to them like a groan. They
stopped to listen and the groan was repeated. They hastily pulled off
the debris and there found the old man still alive. It was understood
that he was immediately taken to the home of friends at Tenth and
Mechanic streets for care and treatment.
This story is the most remarkable instance of preservation of life
recorded. The man must have gone through at least a portion of the storm
to have been caught in the drift. He must have been above the water line
at that point or he would have drowned. Why his groans were not heard
before is not understood, unless it be that he laid unconscious until
shortly before he was found. What a tenacity of life the man must have
had to lie there for a week without food or water buried beneath all
that debris.
Pete Brophey, clerk of the corporation court, is lying in a room at the
Tremont Hotel suffering from injuries received in the storm. The story
he tells of his miraculous escape, like the many others, wonderful, yet
terrible, is also one of sorrow, as he lost his aged parents in the
storm.
HE TOOK THE AWFUL RISK.
When the storm began to get so ferocious he became frightened. In the
evening, just after dark, securing a boat, he started out with his
parents to a Mr. Cleveland’s, a neighbor’s house, it being large and the
most substantial in the neighborhood. At that time the water was rising
rapidly and was being lashed into a perfect fury by the terrific wind.
It was a terrible thing to start out in the water under such conditions,
but he saw that their house would not stand long, so he took the awful
risk. The boat was a small affair, and with three people in it, it was
overloaded; nevertheless, with great daring he succeeded in getting his
mother and father into it, the former being 62 years of age and the
latter 66. It was a terrific risk, but he had to take it. After getting
his parents into the boat he started out to his neighbor’s house.
The waters were rushing like mad down the street and whipped the boat
around as if it were but a straw. Added to the terrible force of the
waters was the terrific wind. They were getting along all right,
notwithstanding this, and were making for the house below them, when,
just ahead, he saw a man and woman and several children making for the
boat. When it came near enough they grasped its sides and begged to be
taken in.
It was indeed a trying situation. There he was, with his aged parents
with him in a boat already overloaded, with the wind blowing almost a
hundred miles an hour and carrying all before it, with the waves dashing
everything to pieces and hurling the timbers of the houses against
whatever might be in the way, with a force that only the most vivid
imagination can picture. It was a terrible ordeal, but like the man that
he is, he could not leave those begging parents and crying children
without making at least an effort to save them. So, after great
difficulty, the woman and children got aboard, and the perilous journey
to what they hoped would be a haven of refuge was again begun, or rather
it had been going on all the time, as the boat was being carried down on
the crest of the waves with frightful velocity.
THE BOAT CAPSIZED.
When almost abreast of the house the boat capsized. Then again Brophey
showed his bravery and that he was through and through a hero. Instead
of striking out alone for the house he thought of his parents and the
drowning family. After much difficulty, after having gone under time and
time again in his frantic efforts to save his loved ones and the
destitute family, he at last succeeded in getting them into the house.
That place they found filled to overflowing with refugees like
themselves. The house was creaking and trembling under the terrible
force of the water and wind, and Brophey saw that it would be but a
little while before it, too, would have to succumb. So he braced himself
in a door and waited for the inevitable. It was but a little while till
it came. The house went down and all with it except Brophey, who found
himself on top of the water in a gurgling and seething mass of timbers,
roofs and other debris. He crawled up on one roof only to have another
one thrown like a blanket over him.
Thus he struggled for two hours in what was an enormous raft of several
hundred broken up houses, going before the wind, being churned together
in a huge caldron by the waters. Whole roofs and sides of houses were
bobbing, striking, sinking, turning over and moving together like chips
in a huge whirlpool. Words can not describe that awful scene. In it all
Brophey and hundreds of others were struggling for their lives almost
all in vain. Dead bodies of women and children who had succumbed to the
inevitable in the early part of the storm, and men and women whom the
waters had not yet killed, but were playing with like a cat does a mouse
before hurling them into the beyond, were carried hither and thither.
DODGING TIMBERS IN THE WATER.
Thus Brophey struggled, several times giving up and letting himself go
down, but rising each time with a determination to fight until the
bitter end, although terrible odds were against him. After having been
in this mighty whirlpool for almost an hour, dodging huge timbers,
crawling on roofs and sides of houses, being sucked under with them, he
saw a house standing. With almost a last effort, he struggled and fought
his way to a window of the house. There were ready hands to pull him
through the window.
This haven which saved his life, together with a number of others,
belonged to a negro and is situated near Thirty-seventh street. It was
filled with negro refugees, and it is, indeed, to their credit that they
struggled with such heroism to save Brophey and several others who
drifted by.
Getting into the house, he threw himself on the floor, more dead than
alive, and there remained until after the storm, when he was taken by
friends to the Tremont Hotel, where he has become convalescent.
One of the interesting features of the story of his terrible struggle is
his unintentional rescue of a dog. Early in his mad career in that most
awful caldron he ran across a dog. From that time until his rescue it
stayed with him, and would not be pushed off, and at last succeeded in
crawling into the window after him. He is going to send for the dog, and
declares that never while he is living will it want for a rug to sleep
on and a bone to eat.
A. C. Fonda, chief clerk in the Santa Fe general freight office, at
Galveston, had a fearful experience during the storm. He said that on
Saturday afternoon, when it became apparent that the flood was going to
be very high, that he went down to his home to remove the furniture from
the lower floors to the upper, never dreaming that the effects of the
storm would be more than a flooding of the first floors of residences.
His family being away in California, fortunately for them, he worked
alone and had about removed everything when the water got so high that
he could not escape from the house.
FLOATED IN A TANK.
He had noted a large zinc-lined wooden tank on the upper floor, used for
holding water, and which he thought might be used for a boat, when
suddenly the crash came and he knew no more for possibly an hour. He
recovered consciousness to find himself floating in the tank on the
surging waters, bruised, bleeding and almost drowned. He managed to
escape to higher ground in a short while and crawled into a deserted
house, where he spent a night of horror, suffering from his injuries and
momentarily expecting death. As soon as daylight came he sought surgical
assistance, and then saw the awful results of the hurricane’s work. Mr.
Fonda is bruised all over, and has a deep wound on the back of his head,
but no bones were broken and he is able to be at work.
E. F. Adams, chief clerk in the Santa Fe passenger department, at
Galveston, is also a flood sufferer, but happily his family are in St.
Louis at present, and his residence, being at Alvin, only suffered
slight damage. He said that he and fifty-two others occupied the Santa
Fe general offices on the night of the storm, and, in his opinion, very
few of them, if any, realized the awfulness of the disaster until next
day, as the sheet-iron roof on the train shed became loose early in the
evening, and the tremendous noise it made in flopping up and down
prevented them from hearing the crash of falling buildings, or, perhaps,
the screams of drowning human beings during the night.
It was only when they came out next morning, Mr. Adams said, that he
realized what the storm meant to thousands in the fated city. Almost the
first object that met his eyes was the corpse of a child lying on the
sidewalk, which staggered him, and with the sickening sights afterward
presented to his view, gave him a shock whose gruesomeness it will take
a lifetime to efface.
TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE OF A SURVIVOR.
A letter to a newspaper furnishes the following account of the terrible
experiences of one of the survivors:
“I came home from my work Saturday evening about 4 o’clock, with Lewis
Fisher. I left Lewis on Tremont street and avenue O, where the water was
three feet deep. He said he was going out to help his people, and told
me good-bye. So I started for home to see how my folks were. When I got
home I found my folks all there, and the water was then five feet deep.
I lived one block from the beach. I began to take them out. Our front
steps had already washed away. I took them to S. Smith’s house on
Seventeenth and O, a big two-story house, thinking it would be safe.
“But it began to grow worse, so I took my father, sister and two smaller
brothers on Nineteenth and O, in Mrs. Carlstedt’s house, where there
were some thirty people. I told my father to take care of the children,
and started back for my mother and brother. On my way I met my friend,
Gus Smith, of Nineteenth and O, and he told me that he would go with me
and help me get my mother and brother.
“It took us an hour to swim one block, and when we got to the house it
had already been washed into the street, and my little brother had been
washed outside and was drowning, but I got him in time and took him back
inside. Smith and I went inside and there we found a colored family and
the Armour family, all asking us to take them away, but it was too late,
as the water was then eight feet deep. Finally, the whole top of the
house blew off and the water was pouring in, and all the people began to
pray.
“The house was twenty-five feet high, and the waves went clean over it.
Finally the whole thing fell in, and I grabbed my mother around the
waist and Smith took my brother, and down we went. It was two minutes
before we had a raft and were on Eighteenth street and O. There were
twenty-eight in the house, and all we could save were seven people, as
it was so dark that you could see no one. We got one little negro by the
name of Albert of the negro family. We stayed out on the raft all night,
without a stitch of clothes on, and the rain was something awful. It
felt like some one was shooting buck shot at us from a distance.
CAPTURED SOME BLANKETS.
“About 2 o’clock in the morning we caught two trunks and broke them
open, and it looked like a godsend to us, as both were full of blankets.
We took these blankets and covered the women and children, or else I
believe they would have frozen to death. About 5 o’clock in the morning
I got up and started in search of my father and sister and other two
brothers, and the first thing I did when I got off the raft was to step
on a dead body.
“I then went a few steps further and found Mrs. A. C. Bell, of
Eighteenth and O, and Mrs. Junker, of O, between Sixteenth and
Seventeenth streets, both dead. We had come from Seventeenth and Beach
to Nineteenth and N. Right across the street was Mr. Sewall’s house, and
I went over there to search for the rest of my folks and found them
there all right, so I went back and got my mother and brother off the
debris, and brought them all together once more.
“We have lost everything we owned and can’t find a piece of the house or
a button off any one’s clothes, but I still have my front door key. My
folks are cut up pretty much, and so am I about the feet, but I am going
to stay here and try and make Galveston what it has been. In the house
on Seventeenth and O is where Mrs. Armour and her five children were
drowned.”
Another letter says:
“I, together with many others, was a passenger on the Houston relief
train last Tuesday, and among the number there was one who should have
special mention. This was Miss Lillian Bleike. I am informed she is the
daughter of W. T. Bleike, a travelling salesman. This young lady was at
Brenham when the news of the storm was reported, and as everything on
earth near and dear to her was on the doomed island, she embarked upon
the first train out.
“Ladies were not permitted upon this train. However, nothing daunted,
she boarded the relief train at Houston, and through the kindness of
those in charge, was permitted to go. At Lamarque, all had to foot it,
and also to assist in clearing the debris. This, too, she would have
done, but was not allowed to do so, and, like a good soldier, footed it
through mud and slush to Virginia Point, boating it to the city,
determined to learn the fate of the loved and dear ones. I have since
learned her family was saved, and what a happy reunion this must have
been. For pluck and courage, the adventures of this young lady stand
among the few.”