The grim calculus: How mass disaster collapses dignity and ritual

“ The horror of the situation does not lessen. The latest estimate of the number of dead is an official one by Adjutant General Hastings, and it places the number between 12,000 and 15,000.
The uncovering of hundreds of bodies by the recession of the waters has already filled the air with pestilential odors. The worst is feared for the surviving population, who must breathe this poisoned atmosphere. Sharp measures prompted by sheer necessity have resulted in an almost complete subsidence of cowardly efforts to profit by the results of the disaster. ”

“ That task pales to insignificance when compared with the task of telling of a storm which threatened the lives of perhaps sixty thousand people, sent to their death perhaps six thousand people, and left others wounded, homeless, and destitute, and still others to cope with grave responsibility, to relieve the stricken, to grapple with and prevent the anarchist’s reign, to clear the water-sodden land 213of putrefying bodies and dead carcasses, to perform tasks that try men’s souls and sicken their hearts. ”

“ NOT MEN ENOUGH TO HANDLE THE DEAD. Further details of the great disaster were as follows: The citizens of Galveston are straining every nerve to clear the ground and secure from beneath the debris the bodies of human beings and animals and to get rid of them. It is a task of great magnitude and is attended with untold difficulties. There is a shortage 77of horses to haul the dead and there is a shortage of willing hands to perform the gruesome work. It became apparent that it would be impossible to bury the dead, even in trenches, and arrangements were made to take them to sea. ”

“ There is no longer any doubt that the death list 128will run into the thousands. It will probably never be known accurately how many perished in the track of last Sunday’s storm. Many bodies have been washed out to sea, and of the hundreds of corpses that lay exposed in the streets and buried under fallen buildings only a fraction will be identified.
“For the sanitary protection of the living it has been found necessary to deny the dead an ordinary burial. A great city full of prosperous people has been suddenly left without food, water, clothing and all the daily necessaries of life. ”

“ A few railroad men have penetrated into the desolated city and returned with fragmentary accounts of the perils that menace the living, and the gruesome work that is being carried on day and night to ward off the contagion that is threatened by the hundreds of corpses that lie corrupting under the hot sun.
“It will be days before a fairly accurate estimate of the loss of life can be made. Arrivals from Galveston to-night tell that citizens are laboring unceasingly at disposing of the dead in order that the living may not suffer. ”

“ Amid the rocks and woods that border the broad track of the waters, who shall say how many lie bruised and mangled and unrecognizable, wedged between boulders or massed amid débris and rubbish, or hidden beneath the heaped-up deposits of earth, and whether all of them shall ever be found and given the last touching rites?
Already the air of the little valley, which four days ago was smiling with all the health of nature and the [Pg 51] contentment of industrious man, is waxing pestiferous with the awful odor of decaying human bodies. ”

“ Are sick with blood; the dew is foul with death;
Heaven's light is quenched in slaughter: thus, where'er
Upon your camps, cities, or towers, or fleets,
The obscene birds the reeking remnants cast
Of these dead limbs,—upon your streams and mountains, _435
Upon your fields, your gardens, and your housetops,
Where'er the winds shall creep, or the clouds fly,
Or the dews fall, or the angry sun look down
With poisoned light—Famine, and Pestilence,
And Panic, shall wage war upon our side! _440
Nature from all her boundaries is moved
Against ye: Time has found ye light as foam. ”

“ Incident to this phase of the situation the chief sensation of the morning was the united remonstrance of the physicians against the extinguishment of the burning wreck of the demolished town which is piled up against the bridge. They maintain, with a philosophy that to anxious searchers seems heartless, that hundreds, if not thousands, of lifeless and decaying bodies lie beneath this mass of burning ruins. ”

“ If the horror of the calamity is to be measured by the loss of life, the same measure should be applied to the pressing necessities of those who have been stripped of everything save life. However much we may deplore the loss of life, the dead are done for. They are beyond and above the crying demands and necessities which press upon those who are left alive.
“In the nature of things, the condition of thousands of those who have been spared is far more pitiable than that of the dead. Their resources have been swept away by wind and tide, and they are desolate in the midst of desolation. ”

“ Indeed the Distress of the People at this Sea-faring End of the Town was very deplorable, and deserved the greatest Commiseration: But alas! this was a a Time when every one’s private Safety lay so near them, that they had no Room to pity the Distresses of others; for every one had Death, as it were, at his Door, and many even to their Families, and knew not what to do, or whither to fly.
This, I say, took away all Compassion; self Preservation indeed appear’d here to be the first Law. ”

“ The people are too much impressed with the necessity of immediate and constant work to think of personal grief.
The twenty-six bodies taken to the hose house in Minersville were buried shortly after ten o'clock yesterday morning. Of the twenty-six, thirteen were identified. Eight women, a baby and four men were buried without having been identified.
All day yesterday men were engaged in burying the dead. They ran short of coffins, and in order to dispose of the rapidly decomposing bodies they built rough boxes out of the floating lumber that was caught. ”

“ Preparations for their burial are being carried on as rapidly as possible, and "coffins, coffins," is the cry. No word has been received anywhere of any being shipped. Even rough boxes will be gladly received. Those that are being made, and in which many of the bodies are being buried, are of rough unplaned boards. One hundred dead bodies are laid out at the soap factory, while two hundred or more people are gathered there that are in great distress. Boats are wanted. People have the greatest difficulty in getting to the town. ”

“ Still finding bodies by scores in the burning débris; still burying the dead and caring for the wounded; still feeding the famishing and housing the homeless, and this on the fourth day following the one on which Johnstown was swept away. The situation of horror has not changed; there are hundreds, and it is feared thousands, still buried beneath the scattered ruins that disfigure the V-shaped valley in which Johnstown stood. A perfect stream of wagons bearing the dead as fast as they are discovered is constantly filing to the improvised morgues, where the bodies are taken for identification. ”

“ In 1875 and 1886, when there were severe storms and no overflow, no increase in sickness occurred.
“Several thousand men are at work clearing away the debris on the beach. One hundred and fifty bodies were discovered in the wreckage and burned Friday. No attempt is now being made to identify recovered bodies. Indeed, most of them are found naked and mutilated beyond recognition. A New York relief train has arrived with a number of physicians and nurses and a large supply of provisions, which were distributed. Every effort is being made by the postal authorities to receive and distribute mail. ”

“ Then, to add to our horrors, the debris piled up against the bridge caught fire, and as the streets were full of oil, it was feared that the flames would extend backwards, but happily for us this was not the case. It was pitiful to hear the cries of those who had been caught in the rubbish, and, after having been half drowned, had to face death as inevitable as though bound to a stake. The bodies of those burned to death will never be recognized, and of those drowned many were so badly disfigured by being battered against the floating houses that they also will be unrecognizable. ”

“ A new and more exact method of determining the number of the lost was inaugurated this morning. Men are sent out by the Relief Committee, who will go to every abode and obtain the names of the survivors, and if possible those of the dead.
The lack of identification of hundreds of bodies strengthens the inference that the proportion of the dead to the living is appalling. It is argued that the friends who might identify these unclaimed bodies are themselves all gone. ”

“ The only difficulty the people are having is in carrying supplies to their homes or places of business. The ice supply continues bountiful, and at many corners lemonade is being served at five cents for as many glasses as you can drink at one time.
“The work of disposing of the dead continues. Several hundred bodies are still buried beneath the wreckage. Thirty-two sand mounds, marked with small boards, attract attention on the beach, near Twenty-sixth street, and tell the story of where seventy-five bodies have been laid to rest. ”

“ How often, in the shocking records of disaster by land and water, is the loss of life directly traceable to the want of that true courage that retains self-possession everywhere, and under all circumstances, giving the power to ward off threatening danger, even when it seems most imminent and irresistible. In pestilence, the terrified are the first to fall victims to the scourge, while none walk so securely as those who possess their souls in quietness. ”

“ Only the hardiest can bear to enter the Morgue this morning, so overwhelming is the dreadful stench. The undertakers even, after hurriedly performing their task of washing a dead body and preparing it for burial, retreat to the yard to await the arrival of the next ghastly find. A strict order is now in force that all bodies should be interred only when it becomes impossible to longer preserve them from absolute putrefaction. There is no iron-clad rule. ”

“ But the occasion appeared when in unforseen force the rains descended and the floods came, and to-day desolation reigns.
A Direful Calamity.
It is impossible yet to measure the extent of the calamity. But the destruction of life and property must be something that it is appalling to think of, and the sorrow and suffering to follow are incalculable. A solemn obligation devolves upon the people of the whole country. We can not remedy the past but we can alleviate the present and the future. Thousands of families are homeless and destitute; thousands are without means of support ”

“ We are broke, the majority of us. Galveston must have suffered, in my estimation, based upon all of the reports I have to the extent of $20,000,000. We now need money more than anything. From the advices I have received I believe that the shipments of disinfectant and food supplies now on the way will be sufficient to meet the immediate wants. By the time these are used we shall have regained our tranquility.”
This is the ninth day after the storm and still the grewsome works goes on of recovering the dead from the gigantic mass of debris that lines the southside of what remains of the city. ”

“ There is a stack of coffins by the railroad bridge. Sometimes a coffin is carried to the spot on the charred débris where the find is made.
Prodding Corpses with Canes.
The searchers by thrusting down a stick or fork are pretty sure to find a corpse. I saw a man run a cane in the débris down to the hilt and it came up with human flesh sticking to it. Another ran a stick into the thoroughly cooked skull of a little boy two feet below the surface. There are bodies probably as far down as seventy feet in some cases, and it does not seem plain now how they are to be recovered. ”

“ An army of men have been for two days employed in clearing up the wreck in the city proper, and although hundreds of bodies have been discovered, not one-fifth of the ground has yet been gone over. In many places the rubbish is piled twenty or thirty feet high, and not infrequently these great drifts cover an area of nearly an acre. ”

“ Up in the centre of the town the débris is piled even higher than at the stone bridge, but the work is going on fairly well. The men seem to be working more together and enter into the spirit of the thing. Besides this, horses and wagons can get at the wrecks, and it really looks as if this part of the ruins has been exaggerated, and some of the foremen there say that at the present rate of work going on through the town all the bodies that ever will be recovered will be found within the next ten days. ”

“ By seven o'clock the whole valley was full of people and the scene was a most animated one. The various sections of the flooded territory were full of [Pg 446] men busy in searching for the dead, removing and burning the débris. At eight o'clock this morning five bodies had been taken from the mass at the stone bridge. A large force of men have been working all day on this part of the wreck, but so great is the quantity of wreckage to be gone over and removed that while much work is done very slow progress is being made. ”

“ Over six thousand men are at work in the various portions of the valley, and each little gang of twenty men is directed by a foreman, who is under orders from the general headquarters. As the rubbish is gone over and the bodies and scattered articles of [Pg 275] value are recovered, the débris is piled up in one high mass and the torch applied. In this way the valley is assuming a less devastated condition. In twenty-four hours more every mass of rubbish will probably have been searched, and the investigations will be confined to the smoking wreck above Johnstown bridge. ”

“ Fears of Pestilence—Searching Parties Clearing Away the Ruins and Cremating the Dead—Distracted Crowds Waiting to Leave the City—Wonderful Escapes. “The large force of men used in burying and cremating the exposed dead scattered throughout the city are trying to complete that portion of their work and are searching for the bodies of unfortunates lying crushed beneath the mass of debris and wrecked buildings. Where the debris lies in detached masses, it is fired, and the bodies therein consumed. ”

“ Unrecognizable Victims of Fire.
There are now nearly two thousand men employed in different parts of the valley clearing up the ruins and prosecuting diligent search for the undiscovered dead, and bodies are discovered with undiminished frequency. It becomes hourly more and more apparent that not a single vestige will ever be recognized of hundreds that were roasted in the flames above the bridge.
A party of searchers have just unearthed a charred [Pg 238] and unsightly mass from the smouldering débris. ”

“ How long—oh Lord—how long will thy peculiar people disregard the simple, unmistakable teachings of common sense, and the admonitions of their own, proper noses, and bury the dead, in the very midst of the living!—Above all, how long will they continue to perpetrate that hideous folly of burying the dead, in tombs! What a childish effort, to keep the worm at bay—to stave off corruption, yet a little while—to procrastinate the payment of nature’s debt, at maturity—DUST THOU ART AND UNTO DUST THOU SHALT RETURN!—For what? ”

“ They fully realize the vastness of their misfortune and the magnitude of their task to repair it, yet, amid all the wreck and havoc that the elements have wrought they say, with determination, that as soon as they bury their dead and provide for the immediate necessities of their living and destitute ones, they will set about to clear away the debris, and begin anew their lives of toil and energy on their storm-stricken island. ”