Читать книгу The Great Galveston Disaster - Paul Lester - Страница 17

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“In a radius of approximately twenty miles from Virginia Point, the centre of railroad relief operations, up to late this afternoon more than 700 corpses had been washed ashore or picked up from the main land. Hitchcock, Clear Creek, Texas City, Virginia Point, Seabrook, Alvin, Dickinson and half a dozen other points midway between Houston and Galveston compose one vast morgue.

“Down along the coast toward Corpus Christi and Rockport all is silence. Not a word had come from there up to this evening. The first news from that section is likely to come from San Antonio, as that is the most directly connected point with that section of the Gulf. An awful calamity, it is feared, will be chronicled when the report does come.

“Telegraphic communication was opened late this afternoon with Beaumont and Orange on the other extreme end of the Gulf to the eastward of Galveston. The joyful news was contained that those two towns and Port Arthur were safe, but in the territory adjacent, forty miles wide and 100 miles long, many lives are believed to have been lost and immense property damage sustained.

“Conservative estimates of the property losses, including commercial and other material interests at Galveston and Houston, put the total at from $40,000,000 to $50,000,000 for the State. This includes the damage to cotton, which is placed at 250,000 bales. John Clay, one of the foremost men in the cotton trade at Dallas, addressed wire inquiries to all accessible points in the cotton growing districts of Texas concerning crop losses. He states they will reach ten per cent. of the State’s crop. Spot cotton sold at ten cents per pound on the market, an advance of half a cent a pound over Saturday’s best figures.