“ Here are all the terrible phenomena of the West Indian hurricane—the tremendous wind, the thrashing sea, the lightning, the bellowing thunder, and the drowning rain that seems to be dashed from mighty tanks with the force of Titans.
But almost in an instant all these may cease. The wind dies, the lightning goes out, the rain ceases, and the thunder bellows only in the distance. The core of the storm is overhead. Only the waves of the sea are churning. There may be twenty miles of this central core, a diameter of only one-thirtieth that of the storm. ”

“ The tornado destroyed dozens of the finest buildings in the city. It leveled massive structures to the ground. It tossed railroad locomotives about and crushed the eastern span of the Eads bridge, one of the strongest structures in the world.
It made St. Louis a city of mourning for weeks and impoverished numberless families.
Yet Galveston surpassed these cities in the frightful nature of its calamity. Hundreds of insane people are being cared for, their reason having been overthrown by their great sufferings. This was one of the saddest features of the shocking visitation. ”

“ Not one inhabitant of Galveston old enough to realize the situation had any idea other than that death was to be the fate of all before another day appeared, and when this long and weary suspense, to which was added the chill of the night and the growing pangs of hunger, was at last broken by the first gleams of the light of the Sabbath morn, the latter was not entirely welcome, for the face of the sun was hidden by morose and ugly clouds, from which dripped, at dreary intervals, cold and gusty showers. ”

“ Thousands were swallowed up during the darkness and their bodies either mangled and mutilated by the wreckage which had been tossed everywhere, left to decompose in the slimy ooze deposited by the flood or forced to follow the waves in their sullen retirement to the waters of the gulf.
Dejection and despondency succeeded fright; the majority of the business men of the city had suffered such losses that they were overcome by apathy; nearly all the homes of the people were in ruins; the streets were impassable, and the dead lay thickly on every side ”

“ The people of the North might differ radically from the people of the South in many ways, but in the presence of such a dreadful visitation of nature, involving suffering and death, the brotherhood of man asserted itself and all things else were forgotten. Only the higher and nobler attributes of human nature assert themselves.
Private individuals, business houses, great corporations, municipal, state and national government vied with each other, as they did when fire swept over Chicago and the flood overwhelmed Johnstown, in expediting relief to the storm-ruined people of Texas. ”

“ The loss of life and property is appalling—so great that it required several days to form anything like a correct estimate. With sad and aching hearts, but with resolute faces, the sentiment of the meeting was that out of the awful chaos of wrecked homes and wrecked business, Galveston must rise again.
“The sentiment was not that of bury the dead and give up the ship; but, rather, bury the dead, succor the needy, appeal for aid from a charitable world, and then start resolutely to work to mend the broken chains. In many cases the work of upbuilding must begin over. ”

“ It is natural that non-residents of Galveston should consider the advisability of abandoning such a perilous site, especially as there can never be any complete security against a disaster like that of Saturday, September 8. But it is safe to say that Galveston will be rebuilt on its sand island. Mankind is not wont to desert any spot of the earth’s surface because of a sudden and rare convulsion of nature. ”

“ Have not had a minute to write and cannot collect my thoughts to tell you of the horrible disaster down here. Thousands of dead in the streets—the gulf and bay strewn with dead bodies. The whole island demolished. Not a drop of water—food scarce. If help does not reach us soon there will be great starvation for everybody.
“The dead are not being identified at all—they throw them on drays and take them to barges, where they are loaded like cordwood, and taken out to sea to be cast into the waves, now peaceful, which were so hungry for them in their anger. ”

“ There was not a building in Galveston which was not either entirely destroyed or damaged, and the people of the city lived in the valley of the shadow of death, helpless and hopeless, deprived of all hope and ambition—merely waiting for the appearance of the official death roll. ”

“ The catastrophe at Galveston served to bring conspicuously into notice the best and worst sides of human nature, which is always the common result of all appalling disasters.
The people of that afflicted city were suddenly overwhelmed by the almost unprecedented fury of the elements. Thousands were killed and injured. Thousands more lost their homes and places of business. They were suffering with hunger and menaced with pestilence. All were brought to a common level by dangers of every description, death in its most awful forms, and an outlook of terrible uncertainty. ”

“ To the south is an unbroken sweep of sea for 800 miles. Twelve hundred miles away is the nesting place of storms—storms that rise out of the dead calm of the doldrums and sweep northward, sometimes with a fury that nothing can withstand. Most of these storms describe a parabola, with the westward arch touching the Atlantic coast, after which the track is northeastward, finally disappearing with the storm itself in the north Atlantic.
But every little while one of these West Indian hurricanes starts northwestward from its island nest, moving steadily on its course and entering the gulf itself. ”

“ On Sunday morning one could walk on the higher streets, so quickly had the water gone down. I took a walk along the beach, and the place was one great litter of overturned houses, debris of all kinds and corpses. I met one woman who burst into tears at sight of a small rocker, her property mixed in among the wreckage. She had lost all her family in the flood.
“People were for the most part bereft of their senses from the horror, and a single funeral would have seemed more terrible—more solemn—than a pile of cremated bodies. ”

“ About ninety years ago an earthquake in Southern Missouri brought calamity to many settlers, but it was a month before the news reached the East, and another month would have had to elapse before relief could have been carried to the sufferers. The impulse to give cannot thrive under such circumstances.
There have been tender hearts in all ages, but only in our time have the means of quick communication made human sympathy effective across continents. The railroad, the telegraph and the newspaper have lengthened the arm of charity quite as much as that of business. ”

“ The inhabitants of Galveston needed immediate relief, but how they were to get it was a mystery, for Galveston was not yet in touch with the outside world by rail or sea. The city was sorely stricken, and appealed to the country at large to send food, clothing and water. The waterworks were in ruins and the cisterns all blown away, so that the lack of water was one of the most serious of the troubles.
Never did a storm work more cruelly. All the electric light and telegraph poles were prostrated and the streets were littered with timbers, slate, glass and every conceivable character of debris. ”

“ Like men stunned and dazed, the survivors of the flood have worked and struggled to bury their dead and to make the city habitable for the living, but it may be doubted whether they even yet realize to the full extent what they have lost, or guess the suffering that is in store for them when their moments of leisure come and they begin to miss their friends and loved ones who are dead. ”

“ Husbands came to the gangplank and kissed their weeping wives good-by, turning back to the hard work of reconstruction which confronted them, with breaking hearts. Scores of women, overcome at the last moment, were cared for by strange hands, while those who loved them, bound to Galveston by necessity, could do no more than watch from afar and pray. ”

“ There is not a home in Galveston that has not been injured, while thousands have been destroyed. The property loss represents accumulations of sixty years and more millions than can be safely stated. Under these conditions, with ten thousand people homeless and destitute, with the entire population under a stress and strain difficult to realize, we appeal directly in the hour of our great emergency to the sympathy and aid of mankind. ”

“ The graveyard, which has held the sleeping citizens of Galveston for many, many years, was giving up its dead. We pulled up at a little wharf in the hush of the starlight; there were no lights anywhere in the city except a few scattered lamps shining from a few desolate, half-destroyed houses. We picked our way up the street. The ground was slimy with the debris of the sea.
“We climbed over wreckage and picked our way through heaps of rubbish. The terrible, sickening odor almost overcame us, and it was all that I could do to shut my teeth and get through the streets somehow. ”

“ I was at the wharf this morning for a short time and saw three barges loaded with their grewsome freight. The bodies are frightful, every one nearly nude. God alone knows who they are.
“The bay is full of dead cattle and horses, together with human corpses, blistering in the hot sun. It will be impossible to remove the dead from the debris for weeks—the whole island is frightful. I saw thirty-eight bodies taken from one house. Every one is striving to get the bodies buried for fear of the plague. ”

“ In one respect the two calamities were alike—the destruction of millions of dollars’ worth of property, but the losses were not so great at Johnstown during those fearful two minutes as those occasioned by the beating of the winds and waves which for hours had Galveston at their mercy.
Johnstown was a city of 30,000, teeming with the industry of a manufacturing town. With not even a warning shout to apprise the inhabitants the dam of a lake high above the town broke and the flood sweeping down the Conemagh Valley engulfed the city and its inhabitants before they even knew of the danger. ”

“ They had made their last stand and effort to secure for themselves and families homes on the coast country of Texas. Their all is involved. Far along in the evening of their life they cannot recuperate.
“If there was time to make another crop they have nothing with which to make it. Unless we help them they must abandon their homes, their all. If the principles of our order—fraternity, charity and loyalty—are of any avail, it is time to show it. Fraternity means organization—charity means everything and is the ‘greatest of all.’ Loyalty means standing by our comrades as well as the flag. ”

“ The fearful mutilation of the dead by the ghouls and vandals who afterward despoiled the corpses of their valuables and the swift vengeance which followed these unutterable crimes when the troops shot the vampires and harpies by the score, are told in the most vivid way; the disposal of the dead by casting their bodies into the sea, burying them hastily in the sands along the beach or cremating them by burning upon vast funeral pyres erected in the principal streets of the city are painted in the ghastly colors of truth ”

“ The twisting tornado is confined to a narrow track and it has no long-drawn-out horrors. Its climax is reached in a moment. The hurricane, however, grows and grows, and when it has reached to 100 or 120 miles an hour nothing can withstand it.
It is this terrible besom of the Southern seas that so nearly has taken Galveston off the map. The great storm of 1875 frightened the city. The fate of Indianola in 1886 and the loss of ten lives and $200,000 worth of property on Galveston Island has kept Galveston uneasy ever since. ”

“ The special train pulled in at Bolivar at 11.30 o’clock and trainmen were notified that further progress was impossible. The greatest excitement prevailed at this place, and parties of citizens were all the time endeavoring to save the poor unfortunates that were being hurled to eternity on the rushing torrent.
The tidal wave struck Bolivar just after dark and in five minutes the Conemaugh rose from six to forty feet and the waters spread out over the whole country. Soon houses began floating down, and clinging to the debris were men, women and children, shrieking for aid. ”

“ No man who has not been an eye-witness to the desolation which has swept over this city can have the faintest conception of what it means.
“Galveston lies on an island about a mile wide from north to south, the city covering about six miles of this east and west. Along the southern side for a distance of two to five blocks every house has been absolutely demolished. Such of these unfortunates as were not drowned are now penniless.” ”