Читать книгу The Great Galveston Disaster - Paul Lester - Страница 4

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The water extended across the island. Mr. Timmins said it was three feet deep in the rotunda of the Tremont Hotel, and was six feet deep in Market street. Along the water front the damage was very great. The roofs had been blown from all the elevators, and the sheds along the wharves were either wrecked or had lost their sides and were of no protection to the contents.

Most of the small sailing craft were wrecked, and were either piled up on the wharves or floating bottom side up in the bay. There was a small steamship ashore three miles north of Pelican Island, but Mr. Timmins could not distinguish her name. She was flying a British flag. Another big vessel had been driven ashore at Virginia Point, and still another was aground at Texas City. At the south point of Houston Island an unknown ship lay in a helpless condition.

The lightship that marks Galveston bar was hard and fast aground at Bolivar Point. Mr. Timmins and the men with him on the schooner rescued two sailors from the Middle Bay who had been many hours in the water. These men were foreigners, and he could gain no information from them.

A wreck of a vessel which looked like a large steam tug was observed just before the party landed. In the bay the carcasses of nearly two hundred horses and mules were seen, but no human body was visible.

The scenes during the storm could not be described. Women and children were crowded into the Tremont Hotel, where he was seeking shelter, and all night these unfortunates were bemoaning their losses of kindred and fortune. They were grouped about the stairways and in the galleries and rooms of the hotel. What was occurring in other parts of the city could only be conjectured.

The city of Galveston was now entirely submerged and cut off from communication. The boats were gone, the railroads could not be operated, and the water was so high people could not walk out by way of the bridge across the bay, even were the bridge standing.

Provisions were badly needed, as a great majority of the people lost all they had. The water works’ power house was wrecked, and a water famine was threatened, as the cisterns were all ruined by the overflow of salt water. This was regarded as the most serious problem to be faced. The city was in darkness, the electric plant having been ruined.