The Great Galveston Disaster, Containing a Full and Thrilling Account of the Most Appalling Calamity of Modern Times Page: 246
xiv, 17-536 p. : front., plates ; 24 cm.View a full description of this book.
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246 THRILLING NARRATIVES BY EYE-WITNESSES.
of devastation extending from the extreme west end to Tremont
street an unobstructed view of the awful wreckage is presented.
Drawing a line on the map of the city from the centre of Tremont
street and Avenue P straight to Broadway and Thirteenth
street where stands the partly demolished Sacred Heart Church,
all the territory south and east of this line is leveled to the ground.
The ridge of wreckage of the several hundred buildings that graced
this section before the storm marks this line as accurately as if
staked out by a surveying instrument. Every building within the
large area was razed by the wind or force of the raging waters, or
both.
This territory embraces sixty-seven blocks and was a thickly
populated district. Not a house withstood the storm and those that
might have held together if dependent upon their own construction
and foundations were buried beneath the stream of buildings and
wreckage that swept like a wild sea from the east to the west, demolishing
hundreds of homes and carrying the unfortunate inmates
to their death either by drowning or from blows of the flying
timbers and wreckage that filled the air.
WIND A HUNDRED MILES AN HOUR.
The strongest wind blew later in the evening, when it shifted
to the southeast and attained a velocity of from Ino to 120 miles
an hour. The exact velocity was not recorded, owing to the destruction
of the wind gauge of the United States Weather Bureau
after it had registered a Ioo-miles-an-hour blow for two minutes.
This terrific southeast wind blew the sea of debris inland and piled
it up in a hill ranging from ten to twenty feet high and marking
the line of the storm's path along the southeastern edge of the
island.
In one place near Tremont street and Avenue P four roofs and
remnants of four houses are jammed within a space of about
twenty-five feet square. Beneath this long ridge many hundred
men, women and children were buried, and cattle, horses and dogs
and other animals were piled together in one confused mass. While
every house in the city or suburbs suffered more or less from the
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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/m1/302/?rotate=90: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.