ON THIS DAY IN TEXAS HISTORY — SEPTEMBER 8, 1900 — A hurricane struck Galveston killing between 6,000 and 8,000 people, making this the worst natural disaster ever to hit the United States.
In 1900 Galveston was a bustling port with around 38,000 residents. On September 4th Isaac Cline, Local Forecast Official and Section Director for the United States Weather Bureau in Galveston, began receiving warnings about the storm, which at that time was moving northward over Cuba. On September 7th the Weather Bureau issued a storm warning for Galveston.
According to a report made by Cline following the hurricane, the tide began rising around noon on September 7th and by 5:00 am on the 8th, “the tide was well up in the low parts of the city.” The rain began at 8:45 am and worsened throughout the day, as did the rising tide. At the storm’s peak, Cline estimated that the wind was blowing at upwards of 120 miles per hour. Around 7:30 pm, in advance of the eye of the hurricane, a four foot wave swept ashore destroying the town. A high-water mark of 15.7 feet was later recorded. Around 10:00 pm the tide began to fall as the storm passed.
One of the survivors of the storm, Pat Joyce, related his ordeal during the storm to The Houston Daily Post and the account was printed in many other state and national publications:
“It began raining in Galveston Saturday morning early. About 9 o’clock I left for home. I got there about 11 o’clock and found about three feet of water in the yard. It began to get worse and worse, the water getting higher and the wind stronger, until it was almost as bad as the Gulf itself. Finally the house was taken off its foundation and entirely demolished. People all around me were scurrying to and fro, endeavoring to find places of safety and making the air hideous with their cries. There were nine families in the house, which was a large two-story frame, and of the fifty people residing there myself and niece were the only ones who could get away. I managed to find a raft of driftwood or wreckage and got on it, going with the tide, I knew not where. I had not gotten far before I was struck with some wreckage, and my niece was knocked out of my arms. I could not save her and had to see her drown. I was carried on and on with the tide, sometimes on a raft and again when I was thrown from it by coming in contact with some of the pieces of timber, parts of houses, logs, cisterns, and other things, which were floating around in the gulf and bay. Many and many a knock I got on my head and body, until I am black and blue all over. The wind was blowing at a terrific rate of speed and the waves were away up. I drifted and swam all night, not knowing where I was going or in what direction. About three o’clock in the morning I began to feel the hard ground, and knew then I was on the mainland. I wandered around until I came to a house, and there a person gave me some clothes; I had lost most of mine soon after I started, and only wore a coat.
I was in the water about seven hours, and this sensation, together with the feeling of all these bruises I have on my head and body is not a pleasant one. I managed to save my own life through the hardest kind of struggle, and I thought more than once that I was done for, but I lost all I had in this world, relatives who were dear to me, home and all.”
Nearly all of the buildings in Galveston were completely destroyed and over 6,000 people were reported as killed by the storm. In his report Cline writes:
“Sunday, September 9, 1900, revealed one of the most horrible sights that ever a civilized people looked upon. About three thousand homes, nearly half the residence portion of Galveston, had been completely swept out of existence, and probably more than six thousand persons had passed from life to death during that dreadful night. The correct number of those who perished will probably never be known, for many entire families are missing. Where 20,000 people lived on the 8th not a house remained on the 9th, and who occupied the houses may, in many instances, never be known.”
As a result of the storm, the residents of Galveston built a seawall to protect the town from future storms. Ironically, Isaac Cline himself had advised against the construction of a seawall only a few years previous to the 1900 hurricane. Although the town of Galveston was rebuilt following the storm, it never reached the prosperity it had before 1900.
Under the modern system of categorizing hurricanes based on wind speed, storm surge and flooding, the 1900 storm is categorized as a Category 4 storm, the second highest category of storms on the Saffir-Simpson scale. Storms in this category are associated with catastrophic damage. The US National Weather Service did not begin naming storms until 1953, so unlike hurricanes today, the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 did not have an official name.
SOURCES
Isaac M. Cline. “Special Report on the Galveston Hurricane of September 8, 1900.” http://www.history.noaa.gov/stories_tales/cline2.html
The Houston Daily Post (Houston, Tex.), Vol. XVIth Year, №159, Ed. 1, Monday, September 10, 1900, newspaper, September 10, 1900; Houston, Texas. (texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth83340/m1/1/?q=Galveston%20Hurricane%201900: accessed September 8, 2016), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; .
Handbook of Texas Online, John Edward Weems, “Galveston Hurricane of 1900,” accessed September 08, 2016, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/ydg02.
