The Great Galveston Disaster, Containing a Full and Thrilling Account of the Most Appalling Calamity of Modern Times Page: 223
xiv, 17-536 p. : front., plates ; 24 cm.View a full description of this book.
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DOOMED CITY TURNED TO CHAOS. 223
sound of a rifle sending some robber of the dead into endless
eternity.
" After landing we made our way over huge heaps of wreckage
that were piled almost mountain high and emerged into an
open space only to be hailed by armed sentries who were guarding
the town against ghouls, vandals and looters. After explaining
who we were the sentries permitted us to pass, and directed us to
the Tremont Hotel, the chief place of rendezvous for the stricken
people.
GHOSTLY SCENES OF NIGHT.
"As we made our way to the hotel, a thing we did with
difficulty, because of the wreckage that covered the streets, we saw
only desolation and ruin on every hand. The pale of the moon
added weirdness to the chaos and look where we might there was
nothing to gladden the searching eye. We passed several small
groups of men who spoke in whispers and those we addressed
looked at us strangely and wondered what we came for.
" At last the hotel was reached and here most of us found
friends and acquaintances who inquired after those we left behind.
The city being under martial law, most of our party, after doing
all in their power to relieve the anxiety of anxious men and
women, disposed themselves about the hotel until morning, it being
unsafe to roam about the city at night for fear of being mistaken
for vandals and ghouls that have infested the city ever since the
storm. To some of us it seemed that morning would never come,
but it did come come at last, and it came bright and fair.
"I then started out to view the stricken city by daylight and
such a scene as I witnessed is beyond the power of words to tell.
The wildest flight of imagination can never paint the picture that
lay before my view, and if none can imagine it, then there is no
way to give one even a faint conception of it in words. The
horror of it is beyond the pale of exaggeration, and the worst that
may be said cannot even approach it. Acres and acres of houses
were scattered in ruins over the earth and beneath the broken and
shivered timbers were the decaying bodies of human beings, who
suffered tortures worse than death.
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The Great Galveston Disaster, Containing a Full and Thrilling Account of the Most Appalling Calamity of Modern Times (Book)
This book covers the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, the United States' deadliest natural disaster. It includes accounts from survivors and eyewitnesses, and photos of the devastation.
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Lester, Paul. The Great Galveston Disaster, Containing a Full and Thrilling Account of the Most Appalling Calamity of Modern Times, book, 1900~; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth26719/m1/277/?rotate=270: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.