CHAPTER XVII

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Galveston's Storm Flies Over the United States and Does Great Damage--Many Lives Lost--It Finally Disappears in the Atlantic Ocean.

When the hurricane was through with Galveston and central and southern Texas it sped north through Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska--its path being 300 miles in width--and then turning toward the east, or slightly northeast, crossed northern Iowa, southern Minnesota, southern Wisconsin, southern Michigan, northern Illinois, northern Indiana, northern Ohio, northern New York and southern Canada, finally disappearing in the Atlantic ocean, creating wreck and havoc wherever it went. It caused great losses of life and property in Newfoundland and destroyed many vessels off the eastern coast of the United States.

The following dispatches show how widespread was its fury:

Buffalo, September 12.--Immense damage was done here and at other lake ports by the Texas storm which traveled with great violence down Lake Erie last night. Reports from Crystal Beach, a summer resort on the Canadian side of Lake Erie, say that every dock has been destroyed, and all the boats of the Buffalo Canoe Club, together with several large seagoing yachts anchored there, were completely wrecked.

In this city the wind attained a velocity of seventy-two miles an hour, and seemed to regain some of the power which it exhibited in wrecking Southern cities. Reports of property loss and fatalities have come in.

St. Joseph, Mich., September 12.--The steamer Lawrence arrived here at 1 o'clock this afternoon from Milwaukee. She left that place at 8 o'clock yesterday morning, and the captain reports a fearful voyage. The captain's wife was here from Milwaukee and was on the dock waiting to meet her husband when the boat touched the dock. The meeting between the two was affecting. All this morning anxious watchers waited on the bluffs at the mouth of the river for a glimpse of the missing boat. Many people had friends among the passengers and crew, and as the morning hours wore on their anxiety became intense.

Cleveland, September 12.--As a result of the furious gale which swept over the lake region last night telegraph and telephone lines were prostrated in all directions from this city to-day. During the height of the storm the wind reached a velocity of sixty miles an hour. To-day the storm is subsiding, the wind having dropped to twenty-six miles an hour.

Up to noon to-day the big passenger steamers City of Erie and the Northwest, which left Buffalo last evening for this port, have not been heard from. They were due here at 6 o'clock this morning. The passenger steamer State of Ohio, due here about the same hour from Toledo, had not arrived at noon.

The wind blew sixty miles an hour across Lake Erie, but the warnings had been so thorough that few vessels were caught unprepared. The steamer Cornell of the Pittsburg Steamship Company's fleet lost her smokestack off Fairport. Her barge anchored, but both came into port later. The Buffalo passenger boat has not yet arrived, having been in shelter at Long Point during the worst of the blow.

Detour, Mich., September 12.--In the storm yesterday the schooner Narragansett, stranded near Cockburn island, was washed off the rocks, and shipping suffered greatly.

Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., September 12.--The wind reached a velocity of thirty miles an hour from the northwest at midnight, the storm being accompanied by considerable rain. Many vessels were lost.

Amhertsburg, Ont., September 12.--The tail end of the Galveston storm struck this section with great force about 11 o'clock last night and continued until early this morning. The loss to shipping is heavy.

Kingston, Ont., September 12.--The Canadian steamer Albacore was driven ashore at 7 o'clock this morning, east of the life-saving station. The crew was saved. The wind is blowing a gale from the west, and shipping on Lake Ontario suffered seriously, many sailors being drowned.

South Haven, Mich., September 12.--The storm did much damage to the docks here last night. Several vessels are reported lost.

Port Huron, Mich., September 12.--The wind blew a gale until 11:30 last night. Three small schooners which left here bound for Sand Beach were wrecked.

The gale passed over Chicago September 11 and attained a velocity early in the afternoon of seventy-two miles an hour, destroyed many lives in the city and neighborhood, did great damage to property on the land and wrecked several vessels on the lakes.

The wind was fitful and blew in gusts. Its advance was met with frequent lulls and interruptions. An embankment of dark, ominous clouds rose steadily in the west. At first it was broken by an occasional rift which revealed the blue sky. But as the cloud bank rose it darkened and rolled over the plains toward Chicago with increasing speed. At 3 o'clock all the blue patches of sky had disappeared, the heavens had assumed a forbidding look and the lake rolled. The increased violence of the storm carried everything before it. No one disputed its rights to the streets, and it blew down wires innumerable, badly crippling the telegraph and telephone service.

The Western Union's fifty-two New York lines were all down.

From Chicago the storm continued its progress across Lake Huron, but was steadily diminishing in intensity.

The storm's velocity diminished after leaving Texas, but increased with wonderful rapidity after reaching the lake region. The wind reached the greatest velocity at Chicago it had attained since leaving Galveston.

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