“The Galveston Disaster”
Main Idea: The Galveston Disaster, the greatest natural disaster to strike the United States, was caused by the combination of many factors..
Introduction
- Galveston Disaster was greatest natural disaster to strike the United States
 8 Sept. 1900
 Combination of three factors:

High Wind

Great Waves

Storm Surge
 8,000 people dead
 More deaths than four natural disasters combined:

Johnstown Flood

San Francisco Earthquake

1938 New England Hurricane

Great Chicago Fire
- “In 1900 Galveston, home to about 37,000 people, was one of the most important cotton markets in America.”
- Island city located eastern end of Texas
- Low sand barrier
 48 km. (30 miles) long
 3.2 km. (2 miles) wide
 Highest point = 2.7 meters (8.7 feet) above sea level
- No modern technology to warn of possible disaster
 No geosynchronous satellites
 No Ship-to-shore radio
 No “networks of weather forecasters”
- Forecasting done by “experience and hunch.”
- Dr. Isaac Cline, Chief of U.S. Weather Bureau’s Galveston station considered “the best.”
The Strom Arrives
- On eve of 7 Sept, Cline becomes concerned. “Something was amiss.”
 26-kilometer (16-mile) per-hour winds.
 Wind coming from “wrong direction.”

 “High clouds were moving at sunset were moving in nearly the opposite way, from the southeast.”
 By midnight, wind shifted NE and grew to 60 kph (50 mph)
- At first people were curious as large waves came to shore and “water began to rise.”
- Cline sense a hurricane was imminent and “spread emergency warning.”
- As warning went out, a steamship was “torn from moorings and smashed […] three bridges connecting island to mainland.”
 Important factor = “There would be no escape.”
- The storm grew worse
 “Atmospheric pressure plummeted.”
 “Wind speed increased.”
 “Tropical cyclone’s low pressure drew the ocean into a broad mound and winds drove this mound ashore.”
 AKA “storm surge.”
- Surge arrived during high tide
- “Waters from Gulf of Mexico and Galveston Bay rose to meet each other.”
- People rushed into a buildings as high as 4 stories to escape water.
- Winds would reach 200 kph (125 mph)
 “collapse structures”
 Free “masses of flotsam that hammer anyone outside.”
- Afternoon, 8 Sept
 Buildings collapse
 “People battered by debris and drowned.”
- 20:30, Sept 8
 Water = 3.4 meter s (11 feet) above island’s highest point
- People die by thousands (redundant?) Much property lost
Galveston Rebuilds
- Galveston rebuilt in 1902
- Residents construct massive seawall
 5 meters (16-feet) thick
 5.2 meters (17 feet) high
 3 miles long
- Wall today is 10 miles long
- Town dredged enough sediment from Galveston bay to raise town 2.5 meters (8 feet)
- “Between 80% – 90% of the residents of hurricane-prone areas have not experienced a major hurricane.