The Galveston Hurricane 1900: America’s Deadliest Natural Disaster
To date, the deadliest natural disaster in the United States is the Galveston Hurricane of September 8, 1900. Also known as the Great Storm or simply “the storm”, the hurricane devastated the prosperous port town of Galveston, Texas. Eight thousand people lost their lives. Thousands more were homeless, and part of Galveston Island sank forever into the sea.
The storm struck Galveston as a Category 4 hurricane. At 7:30 pm, a storm surge of over 15 feet (4.6m) submerged the entire island. Howling winds and torrents of rain pummeled the town. High winds and surging water ripped entire buildings into the air, smashing them into other buildings. Pounding waves reduced homes to splinters. Only a few survived. In the harbor, the hurricane tore ships from their moorings and hurled them as far as two miles inland. People were no match for the ferocity of the storm. Thousands drowned, or were killed by falling and flying debris.
The eye of the hurricane passed over Galveston about 8pm. By 11pm, the savage winds diminished. The storm had destroyed bridges and telegraph poles, and no word of the awful devastation could reach the mainland that night. The battered survivors spent the night in shock and horror, listening to the screams of those who were trapped beneath the rubble.
The next morning, one of the few remaining ships limped into port at Texas City, bearing a handful of survivors. At the time, the death toll was estimated at 500. Rescuers were not prepared for the carnage they found.
Aftermath
About 8,000 people, or twenty percent of Galveston residents lost their lives. Many died beneath the debris, as rescuers struggled in vain to reach them. Some estimates put the death toll between 6,000 to 12,000. The list of the dead was never completed.
Thirty thousand people were homeless, 3,600 homes destroyed completely, and part of the island sank in the Gulf of Mexico. Among the dead were the ten nuns of St. Mary’s Orphanage, and 90 orphans. When their bodies were found, some of the sisters were still clinging to the corpses of the children they had sworn to protect.
John D. Blagden was on temporary assignment to the Weather Bureau when the storm struck. In a September 10 letter to his family, he writes, “There is not a building in town that is uninjured. Hundreds are busy day and night clearing away the debris and recovering the dead. It is awful. Every few minutes a wagon load of corpses passes by on the street.”
Because of the vast number of bodies, it was impossible to bury them all. The bodies were weighted, and thrown out to sea. Many washed back up to shore, and workers had the unhappy task of building funeral pyres along the seashore to burn the bodies. Some members of the rescue crew had to throw the bodies of their own wives and children onto the pyres. The fires burned for weeks.
Survivors erected U.S. Army surplus tents on the beach. There were so many tents that people called them “the White City on the Beach”. By September 12, mail began to arrive again in Galveston. Water and telegraph service was partially restored on September 13. Within three weeks, the port began to ship cotton again, but it would be months before the search for bodies ended. The center of trade and development moved north, to Houston. Galveston would never again enjoy the glory of its former years.
After the disaster, the government installed protective measures to ensure that such a tragedy didn’t happen again. In 1902, engineers began work on three miles of a 17-foot-high seawall. A new, all-weather bridge to the mainland was built. Using dredged sand, engineers raised the city itself up to 17 feet higher than its previous elevation. The engineer in charge of the seawall and city elevation was Henry Martyn Robert – the same man who developed Robert’s Rules of Order.
When another hurricane struck Galveston in 1915, with a storm surge of twelve feet, the improvements withstood the brunt of the storm. Fifty-two people perished.
Today, Galveston is a major cruise port. The town extended the seawall from three to ten miles (16km). The Victorian homes that survived the storm still stand, in honor of the tragedy, and the people who died, and the people who lived.
Galveston’s stormy history isn’t over yet. On September 13, 2008, Hurricane Ike hit the eastern end of the island, wreaking havoc with a storm surge between 17 and 20 feet, and winds in excess of 100 mph (160 km/h). Fifty-one people lost their lives. After Hurricane Ike, 13,000 residents abandoned the remains of their homes, and left Galveston for good. The city is working to rebuild.
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