GALVESTON HURRICANE OF 1900. (CLASS COPY – DO NOT WRITE ON)
The Storm
In Galveston on the rain-darkened and gusty morning of Saturday, September 8, 1900, newspaper readers saw, on page three of
the local Daily, an early-morning account of a tropical hurricane prowling the Gulf of Mexico. On the previous day Galveston
had been placed under a storm warning by the central office of the Weather Bureau (now the National Weather Service) in
Washington, D.C. A one-column headline announced, "Storm in the Gulf." Under that, a small subhead proclaimed, "Great
Damage Reported on Mississippi and Louisiana Coasts-Wires Down-Details Meagre." The story, only one paragraph long, had
been sent out of New Orleans at 12:45 A.M. that same day, but it added nothing to the information presented in the headlines.
Additional details were unavailable "owing to the prostration of the wires." Beneath the New Orleans report appeared a brief
local story: "At midnight the moon was shining brightly and the sky was not as threatening as earlier in the night. The weather
bureau had no late advice as to the storm's movements and it may be that the tropical disturbance has changed its course or spent
its force before reaching Texas."
This hurricane had been first observed on August 30 in the vicinity of 15° north latitude and 63° west longitude, about 125 miles
northwest of Martinique, proceeding westward. Galvestonians had been aware of the storm since September 4, when it was
reported moving northward over Cuba. From the first, however, details had been sketchy because of poor communications.
Ships at sea, where oncoming hurricanes built strength, had no way of telegraphing weather observations ashore, and other
nineteenth-century technical shortcomings interfered. Except for the rain and wind, Saturday began in the city of 38,000
inhabitants much the same as any other weekday. People prepared for another stint in the routine of six-day workweeks then
common; not even an encroaching tide disturbed them greatly. Galvestonians had become used to occasional "overflows," when
high water swept beachfronts. Houses and stores were elevated as a safeguard.
The tide kept crashing farther inland, and the wind steadily increased. The Weather Bureau official in charge locally, Isaac M.
Cline, drove a horse-drawn cart around low areas warning people to leave. Comparatively few people had evacuated the city,
however, before bridges from Galveston Island to the mainland fell, and many people along the beach waited until too late to
seek shelter in large buildings in a safer area downtown, away from the Gulf. Houses near the beach began falling first. The
storm lifted debris from one row of buildings and hurled it against the next row until eventually two-thirds of the city, then the
fourth largest in Texas, had been destroyed. People striving to make their way through wind and water to refuge were struck by
hurtling bricks and lumber and sometimes decapitated by flying slate from roofs. The greatest wind velocity registered before
the anemometer blew away at 5:15 P.M. was an average of eighty-four miles an hour for a five-minute period, but gusts of 100
miles an hour had been recorded, and weathermen's estimates later reached more than 120 miles an hour. About 6:30 P.M. a
storm wave, sweeping ashore in advance of the hurricane's vortex, caused a sudden rise of four feet in water depth, and shortly
afterward the entire city was underwater to a maximum depth of fifteen feet. This storm wave caused much of the damage. The
lowest barometer reading was 28.44, recorded shortly after 7:00 P.M. Around 10:00 P.M. the tide began to fall slowly, and little
damage occurred after that.
The Aftermath
September 9 dawned on desolation. Most of the city lay in shambles. Between 6,000 and 8,000 people in the city of Galveston
had died, and estimated casualties for the entire island ranged from 10,000 to 12,000. Property damage is impossible to estimate
by current standards, but contemporary figures ranged from twenty to thirty million dollars. A high-water mark of 15.7 feet and
high winds had destroyed a third of the city, including 2,636 houses and 300 feet or 1,500 acres of shoreline. The sixteen ships
anchored in the harbor at the time of the storm also suffered extensive damage. More violent and costlier hurricanes have struck
coastal areas of the United States since 1900, but because of the death toll the Galveston storm that year was in the 1980s still
called the worst recorded natural disaster ever to strike the North American continent.
Out of the chaos, citizens developed the commission form of city government now used by many other municipalities.
Construction began on a six-mile-long seawall standing seventeen feet above mean low tide, and that protective barrier has been
extended since then. Inside the city, sand pumped from the Gulf floor raised the grade as much as seventeen feet. This work
required advance raising of 2,146 buildings and many streetcar tracks, fireplugs, and water pipes. Trees, shrubs, and flowers had
to be removed if the owners wanted to save them. The largest building raised was a 3,000-ton church. It was boosted five feet off
the ground with jacks, then fill was pumped underneath; church services were held on schedule. The great storm that wrought all
this left a long track. From Texas it traveled into Oklahoma and Kansas, turned northeastward and crossed over the Great Lakes
and part of Canada, and on September 12 passed north of Halifax and disappeared into the North Atlantic.
Eyewitness Account (Primary Source)
Milton Elford was a young man living in Galveston with his mother, father and a young nephew, Dwight. Milton was the
only one of his family to survive the storm. He described his experience in a letter to his brothers in North Dakota. We join
his story as the rising water and intensity of the storm persuade the family to leave their home for a sturdier brick house
across the street:
"We left our house about 4 o'clock thinking we would be safer in a larger house, not dreaming that even that house would
be washed away. We went across the street to a fine large house, built on a brick foundation high off the ground. About 5
it grew worse and began to break up the fence, and the wreckage of other houses was coming against us.
We had arranged that if the house showed signs of breaking up, I would take the lead and Pa would come next, with Dwight and
Ma next. In this way I could make a safe place to walk, as we would have to depend on floating debris for rafts.
There were about fifteen or sixteen in the house besides ourselves. They were confident the house would stand anything; if not
for that we would probably have left on rafts before the house went down. We all gathered in one room; all at once the house
went from its foundation and the water came in waist-deep, and we all made a break for the door, but could not get it open. We
then smashed out the window and I led the way.
I had only got part way out when the house fell on us. I was hit on the head with something and it knocked me out and into the
water head first. I do not know how long I was down, as I must have been stunned. I came up and got hold of some wreckage on
the other side of the house. I could see one man on some wreckage to my left and another on my right. I went back to the door
that we could not open. It was broke in, and I could go part way in, as one side of the ceiling was not within four or five feet, I
think, of water. There was not a thing in sight.
I went back and got on the other side but no one ever came up that I could see. We must all have gone down the same time, but I
cannot tell what they did not come up.
I then started to leave by partly running and swimming from one lot of debris to
another. The street was full of tops and sides of houses and the air was full of flying
boards. I think I gained about a block on the debris in this way, and got in the shelter
of some buildings, but they were fast going down, and I was afraid of getting buried.
Just then, the part I was on started down the street, and I stuck my head and
shoulders in an old tool chest that was lying in the debris that I was on. I could
hardly hold this down on its side from being blown away, but that is what saved my
life again.
When the water went down about 3 a.m., I was about five blocks from where I
started. My head was bruised and legs and hands cut a little, which I did not find
until Monday and then I could hardly get my hat on.
...As soon as it was light enough, I went back to the location of the house, and not a
sign of it could be found and not a sign any house within two blocks, where before
there was scarcely a vacant lot.
Taking bodies to be burned
I then went to the city hall to see the chief of police, to get some help to recover the corpses, thinking, I guess, that I was the only
one in that fix.
The fireman and others started before noon to bring in corpses; they brought them in in wagon loads of about a dozen at a time,
laid them down in rows to be identified, and he next day they were badly decomposed, and were loaded on boats and taken to
sea only to wash back on the beach. They then started to bury them wherever they were found but yesterday (Wednesday) the
corpses were ordered burned. Men started removing the debris and burning it, and when they came upon a corpse it is just
thrown on the pile."
Name: _______________________________________________ Period ______________
Galveston Hurricane of 1900
Questions
1. Before the storm hit Galveston, do you think the Galveston citizens and authorities and the Weather Service were very
concerned? – What evidence do you have to support that conclusion?
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2. How could today’s technology have helped the people of Galveston be better prepared?
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3. Few people on Galveston Island evacuated before the storm hit, why was it so difficult to escape after it struck the
Island?
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4. How did the people and government of Galveston respond to the storm after it was over? How did they try to prevent it
from happening again in the future?
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5. After the storm hit, Milton Elford’s family seems to have a plan on how to survive the storm. What goes wrong to make
the plan not work?
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6. What stands out to you most about Milton’s account of his experience?
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7. Pretend that you are a fireman or policeman helping after the storm. Describe what you think that would be like. Give
details:___________________________________________________________________________________________
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