CHAPTER VII

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Lives Lost and Property Damage Sustained Outside of Galveston--One Thousand Victims and Millions of Value in Crops Swept Away--Estimates Made.

Galveston's property loss by the hurricane was hardly less than $20,000,000; outside of that city, in Houston and other points in Central and Southern Texas, together with the agricultural and stock-raising districts, the property damage was nearly half that amount, or in the neighborhood of $10,000,000.

Probably seventy-five villages and towns were swept by the storm, and in most of these places there was loss of life.

It was reliably estimated from reports received at Austin, the capital city of Texas, from these places that the loss of life, exclusive of the death list of Galveston Island and City of Galveston, would aggregate 1,000 people. In many towns the percentage of killed or drowned exceeded that in the City of Galveston. Several towns were swept completely out of existence.

The scene of desolation in the devastated district was terrible to witness. The storm was over 200 miles wide and extended as far inland as Temple, a distance of over 200 miles from the gulf. The cotton crop in the lower counties was completely ruined. The same was true of the rice crop. The distress was keenly felt by the planters and small farmers throughout the storm-swept region.

In Houston the damage was not figured at over $400,000; at Alvin, $200,000, the town being virtually destroyed and 6,000 people in that section deprived not only of shelter and food for the time being but all prospect for crops in the year to come.

On the 15th of September, R. W. King sent out the following statement and appeal from Houston after a thorough investigation of the situation in and around Alvin:

"I arrived in Alvin from Dallas and was astonished and bewildered by the sight of devastation on every side. Ninety-five per cent of the houses in this vicinity are in ruins, leaving 6,000 people without adequate shelter and destitute of the necessaries of life, and with no means whatever to procure them. Everything in the way of crops is destroyed, and unless there is speedy relief there will be exceedingly great suffering.

"The people need and must have assistance. Need money to rebuild their homes and buy stock and implements. They need food--flour, bacon, corn. They must have seeds for their gardens so as to be able to do something for themselves very soon. Clothing is badly needed. Hundreds of women and children are without a change and are already suffering. Some better idea may be had of the distress when it is known that box cars are being improvised as houses and hay as bedding. Only fourteen houses in the Town of Alvin are standing, and they are badly damaged."

The damage at Hitchcock was not less than $100,000, but the news from there was disheartening. A bulletin from a reliable source, dated September 15, said:

"Country districts are strewn with corpses. The prairies around Hitchcock are dotted with the bodies of the dead. Scores are unburied, as the bodies are too badly decomposed to handle and the water too deep to admit of burial.

"A pestilence is feared from the decomposing animal matter lying everywhere. The stench is something awful. Disinfecting material is badly needed."

Other outside losses were:

Property.

Richmond $ 75,000 Fort Bend County 300,000 Wharton 30,000 Wharton County 100,000 Colorado County 250,000 Angleton 75,000 Velasco 50,000 Other points, Brazoria County 80,000 Sabine 50,000 Paton 10,000 Rollover 10,000 Winnie 10,000 Belleville 5,000 Hempstead 25,000 Brookshire 35,000 Waller County 100,000 Arcola 5,000 Sartartia 50,000 Dickinson 30,000 Texas City 150,000 Columbia 10,000 Sandy Point 10,000 Near Brazoria (convicts killed) 35,000 Other points 100,000

Damage to railroads outside of Galveston, $500,000.

Damage to telegraph and telephone wires outside of Galveston, $50,000.

Damage to cotton crop, estimated on average crop of counties affected, 50,000 bales, at $60 a bale, $3,000,000.

Damage to stock was great, thousands of horses and cattle having perished during the storm.

In Brazoria and other counties of that section there was hardly a plantation building left standing. All fences were also gone and the devastation was complete. Many large and expensive sugar refineries were wrecked. The negro cabins were blown down and many negroes killed. On one plantation, a short distance from the ill-fated Town of Angleton, three families of negroes were killed.

The villages of Needville and Basley in Fort Bend county were completely destroyed. Over twenty people were killed, most of the bodies having been recovered. Every house in that part of the country was destroyed and there was great suffering among the homeless people.

There was much destitution among the people of Richmond in the same county. Richmond was one of the most prosperous towns in south Texas. It was wholly destroyed and the homeless ones were without shelter. Their food supplies were provided by their more fortunate neighbors until other assistance could be had.

The State authorities heard from the Sartaria plantation, where several hundred State convicts were employed. Every building on the plantation was blown down and the loss to property aggregated $35,000. Fifteen convicts were caught under the timbers of a falling building and all killed. Over a score of others were injured. In addition to the loss on buildings the entire cane crop was destroyed on this as well as other plantations in that section.

Seven people were killed in the Town of Angleton, which was almost completely destroyed. In the neighborhood of Angleton five more persons were killed and their bodies have been recovered. The loss of life in that immediate section far exceeded the estimates given in the earlier reports.

The search for victims of the flood at Seabrook resulted in fifty bodies being recovered. Seabrook was a favorite summer resort with many Texas people, and its hotels were filled with guests. Many were out on pleasure jaunts when the storm came upon them. There were many guests in the private houses which were swept away.

The casualties at Texas City were five.

Velasco, situated near the mouth of the Brazos river, asked for help. Over one-half of the town was destroyed and eleven people lost their lives. Reports from the adjacent country showed that many negroes were killed.

Eleven negro convicts employed on a plantation in Matagorda county were killed by the collapse of a building in which they had sought refuge from the storm.

The Town of Matagorda, situated on the coast, was in the brunt of the storm. Several people were killed in the Towns of Caney and Elliott, in the same county. The new buildings on the Clemmons convict farm, owned and operated by the State, were destroyed and several convicts injured. The crops were also ruined.

Over fifty negroes were killed in Wharton county, ten being killed on one plantation near the Town of Wharton.

Bay City suffered a loss of nearly all of its buildings and three were killed there. There were many homeless people in Missouri City, every house in the town but two being destroyed. The destitute people were living out of doors and camping on the wet ground.

Outside of the cities of Galveston and Houston, the greatest suffering was between Houston and East Lake, inland, and on the coast to the Brazos river. There was no damage at Corpus Christi, Rockport, or in that immediate section of the coast.

People in immediate need of relief were those of the Colorado and Brazos river bottoms. The planters in that section had everything swept away last year, and the flood this year devastated their crops, leaving the tenants in a state bordering on starvation. An enormous acreage was planted in rice and the crop was ready for harvesting when the furious winds laid everything low.

At Wharton, Sugarland, Quintana, Waller, Prairie View and many other smaller places barely a house was left standing. Many of the farm hands had been brought into that section to assist at cotton picking and other farming. The people were huddled in small cabins when the first signs of a storm began brewing. But few escaped. Their clothing and everything was gone. They were absolutely devoid of even the necessities with which to sustain life.

To begin over again the owners of plantations had to rebuild houses, purchase new machinery and new draft animals. The loss of horses and mules in the stricken district was a severe blow. Live stock interests were also greatly harmed.

In the opinion of railway men several years must elapse before the farming districts can be restored to their former conditions. The advanced prices of building material was a hard blow for the smaller farmers, who in most instances were owners of farms.

Appeals for relief were received from everywhere in the storm center. The season had given promise of producing the best harvest in the previous fifteen years.

Five Houston people were drowned at Morgan's Point--Mrs. C. H. Lucy and her two children, Haven McIlhenny and the five-year-old son of David Rice. Mr. Michael McIlhenny was rescued alive, exhausted and in a state of terrible nervousness.

McIlhenny said the water came up so rapidly that he and his family sought safety upon the roof. He had Haven in his arms and the other children were strapped together. A heavy piece of timber struck Haven, killing him. McIlhenny then took up young Rice, and while he had him in his arms he was twice washed off the roof and in this way young Rice was drowned.

Mrs. Lucy's oldest child was next killed by a piece of timber and the younger one was drowned, and next Mrs. Lucy was washed off and drowned, thus leaving Mr. and Mrs. McIlhenny the only occupants on the roof. Finally the roof blew off the house and as it fell into the water it was broken in twain, Mrs. McIlhenny remaining on one half and McIlhenny on the other. The portion of the roof to which Mrs. McIlhenny clung turned over and this was the last seen of her. McIlhenny held to his side of the roof so distracted in mind as to care little where or how it drifted. He finally landed about 2 p. m. Sunday.

At Surfside, a summer resort opposite Quintana, there were seventy-five persons in the hotel. The water was about it, and the danger was from the heavy logs floating from above. Only a few men worked in the village, so a number of women went into the water to their waists and assisted in keeping the logs away from the hotel, and no one was lost.

At Belleville every house in the place was damaged, and several were demolished, including two churches. One girl was killed near there. Not a house was left at Patterson in a habitable condition.

Two boarding cars were blown out on the main line and whirled along by the wind sixteen miles to Sandy Point, where they collided with a number of other boarding cars, killing two and injuring thirteen occupants.

A dead child, the destruction of all houses except one and the destitution of some fifty families is the record of the work of the hurricane at Arcadia. From fifty other towns came reports that buildings were wrecked or demolished. Most of them reported several dead and injured.

J. D. Dillon, commercial agent of the Santa Fe Railway Company, made a trip over the line of his road from Hitchcock to Virginia Point on foot, September 13, and gave a graphic account of his journey, which was made under many difficulties.

"Twelve miles of track and bridges are gone south of Hitchcock," said he. "I walked, waded and swam from Hitchcock to Virginia Point, and nothing could be seen in all of that country but death and desolation. The prairies are covered with water, and I do not think I exaggerate when I say that not less than 5,000 horses and cattle are to be seen along the line of the tracks south of Hitchcock.

"The little towns along the railway are all swept away, and the sight is the most terrible that I have ever witnessed. When I reached a point about two miles north of Virginia Point I saw some bodies floating on the prairie, and from that point until Virginia Point was reached dead bodies could be seen from the railroad track, floating about the prairie.

"At Virginia Point nothing is left. About 100 cars of loaded merchandise that reached Virginia Point on the International and Great Northern and the Missouri, Kansas and Texas on the night of the storm are scattered over the prairie, and their contents will no doubt prove a total loss."

On Friday, September 14, from early morning until far into the afternoon Governor Sayers was in conference with relief committees from various points along the storm-swept coast. Among the first committees to arrive was one from Galveston. These men consulted at length with the Governor, and as a result of this conference it was decided that the State Adjutant General, General Scurry, should be left in command of the city, which was to be considered under military rule, and that he was to have the exclusive control not only of the patrolling of the city, but of the sanitary forces engaged in cleaning the city.

It was decided also that instead of looking to the laboring people of Galveston for work in the emergency an importation of outside laborers to the number of 2,000 should be made to conduct the sanitary work while the people of Galveston were given an opportunity of looking after their own losses and rebuilding their own property without giving any time to the city at large.

It was believed that with the work of these 2,000 outside laborers it would require about four weeks to clean the city of debris, and in the meantime the citizens could be working on their own property and repairing damage there.

Another relief committee from Velasco reported that 2,000 persons were in destitute circumstances, without food, clothing, or homes. Crops had been totally destroyed, all farming implements were washed away, and the people had nothing at hand with which to work the fields.

A relief committee from the Columbia precinct reported 2,500 destitute. Other sections sent in committees during the day, and as a result of all Governor Sayers ordered posthaste shipments of supplies.

The text of the message of sympathy received by President McKinley from the Emperor of Germany was as follows:

"Stettin, Sept. 13, 1900.--President of the United States of America, Washington:--I wish to convey to your excellency the expression of my deep-felt sympathy with the misfortune that has befallen the town and harbor of Galveston and many other ports of the coast, and I mourn with you and the people of the United States over the terrible loss of life and property caused by the hurricane, but the magnitude of the disaster is equaled by the indomitable spirit of the citizens of the new world, who, in their long and continued struggle with the adverse forces of nature, have proved themselves to be victorious.

"I sincerely hope that Galveston will rise again to new prosperity.

"WILLIAM, I. R."

The President replied:

"Executive Mansion, September 14, 1900.--His Imperial and Royal Majesty Wilhelm II., Stettin, Germany:--Your majesty's message of condolence and sympathy is very grateful to the American government and people, and in their name, as well as on behalf of the many thousands who have suffered bereavement and irreparable loss in the Galveston disaster, I thank you most earnestly.

"WILLIAM McKINLEY."

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