Читать книгу The Great Galveston Disaster - Paul Lester - Страница 23

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“Eight ocean steamers were torn from their moorings and stranded in the bay. The Kendall Castle was carried over the flats at Thirty-third street wharf to Texas City, and lies in the wreckage of the Inman pier. The Norwegian steamer Gyller is stranded between Texas City and Virginia Point. An ocean liner was swirled around through the west bay, crashed through the bay bridges, and is now lying in a few feet of water near the wreckage of the railroad bridges.

“The steamship Taunton was carried across Pelican Point and is stranded about ten miles up the east bay. The Mallory steamer Alamo was torn from her wharf and dashed upon Pelican flats, and against the bow of the British steamer Red Cross, which had previously been hurled there. The stern of the Alamo is stove in and the bow of the Red Cross is crushed. Down the channel to the jetties two other ocean steamships lie grounded. Some schooners, barges and smaller craft are strewn bottom side up along the slips of the piers. The tug Louise, of the Houston Direct Navigation Company, is also a wreck.

“It will take a week to tabulate the dead and the missing and to get anything near an approximate idea of the monetary loss. It is safe to assume that one-half the property of the city is wiped out, and that one-half of the residents have to face absolute poverty.

“At Texas City three of the residents were drowned. One man stepped into a well by a mischance and his corpse was found there. Two other men ventured along the bay front during the height of the storm and were killed. There are but few buildings at Texas City that do not tell the story of the storm. The hotel is a complete ruin. The office of the Texas City Company was almost entirely destroyed. Nothing remains of the piers except the piling.

“The wreckage from Galveston litters the shore for miles and is a hundred yards wide. For ten miles inland from the shore it is a common sight to see small craft, such as steam launches, schooners and oyster sloops. The life boat of the life-saving station was carried half a mile inland, while a vessel that was anchored in Moses Bayou lies high and dry five miles up from La Marque.