Hurricane Of 1900 Research Paper

The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 was a natural disaster that left the people of Galveston with an unimaginable and terrifying experience,various personal stories, and a massive cleanup job that led to building the sea wall and raising the elevation of the city. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 was the biggest natural disaster in American history. When it came there was little warning and once the citizens were warned it was too late to leave. The waves and rain from the hurricane flooded the whole city over fifteen feet high with water. During the storm people experienced many events that would change their lives. Everyone who survived this hurricane had a story, a story that could be tragic, happy, or full of stress. Once the storm was over there was an immense amount of debris that needed to be cleaned up. The people of Galveston had to look for bodies and people who were buried alive. Galveston had to rebuild everything and start all over. The people living there came up with an idea to build a seawall that would protect Galveston from large waves created by another hurricane. They then also raised the city by as much as 17 feet in some areas.
The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 was an unexpected and drastic natural disaster that

hit the city of Galveston;it was like nothing the people of Galveston had experienced before. On Sept. 4, 1900, the Galveston weather station received a notice that a hurricane was coming northward from Cuba.The barometric pressure at the Galveston weather station on Sept. 6 was 29.97 inches and slowly falling.The station's climatologist, Isaac Cline, was notified by telegraph that the hurricane had just passed over Florida. On the next day, Isaac Cline wrote in his journal that the winds at Galveston were becoming stronger and the seas were rough, but he didn’t see any usual signs of a hurricane coming.In Galveston, on September 8, in the morning, rain clouds were building up, and the winds were much stronger. Later on in the day the tide started getting very high. When the lower-lying streets started flooding, Cline got scared and started raising hurricane warning flags around Galveston. He also left the office that morning to go and warn people living close to the beach to go and find safe shelter. But the people just ignored the warnings and went about their regular day. They had gone through many other storms before and were not concerned about this particular one. Later on in the afternoon the barometer started rapidly falling. The winds started getting to be about 85 miles per an hour. Debris like bricks and roof slate started blowing around the city.Few people had evacuated the city, before the bridges to the mainland fell. By then it was too late to leave and now the people by the shore had to go find shelter in sturdy buildings towards the inland. By mid-afternoon the hurricane hit. As it got darker outside, the hurricane only got more intense. By then half the streets were flooded and citizens started getting very alarmed. Many of them came to the weather station asking for directions of what to do to save themselves. Later when people got home to their families, in some places, the water would be waist or neck deep. At this time debris was flying everywhere and it was deadly to walk outside. Many people died from the debris hitting them, while trying to escape town. At one point the water would be eight inches deep and then a few seconds later it would raise four feet high.By now water was ten feet high.The tide kept on rising and reached twenty feet. The debris piled up fifteen to twenty feet high. The houses were now falling from the hellish waves. Even "storm-proof" buildings fell under the strength of the waves. The collapsing buildings caught and drowned victims under water. Everyone who found themselves caught out of shelter had to cling onto boards and big pieces of debris to save themselves. In order to keep on the top of the floating masses of wrecked buildings one had to be constantly on the lookout and continually climbing from drift to drift. Many people were floating for there lives for over three hours. There were points where the people who were alive couldn't see any houses or people.This was because some of them had floated so far away they could have been in the ocean. The people of Galveston were in this situation for about five hours. Then the flooding started going down towards midnight and soon was only at four feet in some places. The water kept on receding and by the next morning the Gulf was almost a normal height of water. The Galveston hurricane of 1900 was a beastly and horrible event and came so quickly without much warning, it flooded the whole island and destroyed everything.
All the people who survived The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 have a story about what happened to them, and these stories are very emotional; they are full of deaths and unimaginable fright. They can end happy when rejoined with loved ones, or so mournful, that the stories are not even wanted to be thought of. Milton Elford’s story was very sad, as his whole family died. At four o’clock p.m. his family and him left to a larger house thinking they would be safe. About two hours later the house started flooding waist deep. The people taking refuge in the house decided to evacuate. The door wouldn’t open due to debris blocking it, so Milton broke the window open. He then started swimming out, but when his body was halfway out the house collapsed. Something hit his head and he was knocked him out into the water. He came up from the water and took hold to debris. First he went to try to open the door to the house but couldn’t. Milton then realized that his whole family was dead. After he went from one piece of debris to the other swimming up the block. He took shelter in some buildings, but they all started coming down too. At one point he put his upper body into a toy tool box and pushed down on it to stop himself from flying away. He survived the hurricane and afterwards went to help clean the city and burn the bodies. Eight months pregnant, Mrs. William Henry Heideman was in her home when the storm broke her house down. Panicked, the Heideman family fled, and Mrs. Heideman escaped right before her home crumbled into the water, crushing her husband and three-year-old son. The streets were completely gone, totally covered with water, and the pregnant mother was forced to scramble onto a floating rooftop. For a while she floated until a crashing wave sended her flying. She would have landed in the water causing her immediate death, but she landed in a floating trunk.The trunk bumped into a convent, and Mrs. Heideman was brought in by the nuns. Just a few hours later, she gave birth to a boy. And right outside the convent, was Mrs. Heideman’s brother,hanging in a tree for life, he heard a child in the water, screaming for help. As the boy floated by, the man pulled the kid and hauled him up into the branches. Unbelievably, the boy was the man’s nephew and Mrs. Heideman’s son, the one who’d supposedly died when her house collapsed. After the storm subsided the family reunited. Another happy story like this one is about Mr. and Mrs. Irwin. The couple sat on top of their house and when the building fell they drifted apart. Mrs. Irwin was floating on a “raft”- a piece of the roof during the storm,and Mr. Irwin found a safe place in a building. He thought he would never see his wife again. Suddenly he heard a cry for help and wanted to rescue the person. He went outside to them and saw that this person was his wife floating there on her raft.A painful and tragic story were experienced by some people at Ritter’s Cafe. The rain slammed against the cafe and then the roof got stripped off. The second floor of the cafe, being exposed to the wind and rain, bent under pressure and crashed in. But the second floor was a printing press. So a bunch of machinery and desks came crashing down. Some managed to duck under a oak bar but others were unfortunate. Five people were crushed to death and five others were crucially injured. A waiter ran outside to get medical help, but got washed away into the floods. Humans weren’t the only ones with stories.Many animals also suffered terribly. One horse was trying to escape the storm, but a piece of wood shotted through him, killing the horse instantly. After the hurricane when the island was left in ruins, Galveston’s dogs went insane due to lack of food and water.Some animal’s stories were more jovial. One parrot was saved when it’s owner held it up above herself over the raging waters. Some animals managed to get into buildings by themselves, and thus were saved. One panicked horse kicked down a door and ran upstairs. It was rescued two days later. When the water started flooding the sidewalks, people climbed up trees to save themselves. But also the venomous snakes had the same idea.They slithered up the trunks, only to find their hiding spots occupied.Things didn’t end well. After the storm, search parties were shocked to find bodies up in the trees,covered in snake wounds and punctures.The hurricane left everyone; animals and humans, with an obliterating story. Unquestionably, these stories are so immensely apprehensive and alarming to the people that it occurred too.
After the hurricane, the city of Galveston was in total annihilation, and so the people of Galveston took major steps to deal with the effects, rebuild the island, and to prevent damage in future hurricanes. On September 9th, the day after the storm, the people saw how big the horrid effects of the hurricane were.Where 20,000 people lived on September 8th, not a single house remained on the beach, and who occupied them may never be known. The property damage of the island was about thirty million dollars.The high waters and wind had destroyed a third of the city. 2,636 houses were destroyed and sixteen ships anchored at the harbor had lots of damage.The people cleaned up the wreckage and debris everywhere. About 8,000 of the citizens had died from the storm.Bodies lay everywhere and many of them were buried under rubble and debris.The citizens who were still alive had to clean up all the dead bodies for health reasons. The stench of decaying bodies was awful and the workers wore handkerchiefs covered in camphor to block out the smell. Many of the men drank whiskey to lessen the horror.First they dumped the corpses into the Gulf, but later the corpses started washing up on shore, so the workers started burning the bodies.They then started the task of rebuilding the city. To prevent further storm damages and flooding, they put together a two part plan; To build a three mile seawall and then raise the city by 17 feet. The cost of the project was estimated to be $3.5 million. Many donations were sent in by states and countries around the world for rebuilding. The seawall construction money would be payed through a bond issue.The construction then began. The seawall was built in 50-foot interlocking sections. J.M. O’Rourke and Co. of Denver built pilings and then concrete was then poured over. They put concave to absorb shock and return the waves back on themselves. Granite was added to, to add protection from erosion. When it was finished it stood 17 feet above low tide,was 15 feet thick at the base,and 5 feet thick on top. The crew then lifted the entire city. It was done by every 16 blocks. All of the gas and water lines and utilities had to be lifted additionally. Many of the structures were rebuilt on stilts. Then a canal was built to bring in sand and water to lift the city. Then the water was drained leaving the sand behind. While the work was being done people had to walk on catwalks about ten feet high. Then the land behind the seawall was raised by 16.5 feet to give the seawall a solid support.When the job was finished in 1910, 500 city blocks had been raised about 17 feet high. The rebuilding of Galveston, dealt with many effects of the hurricane and helped to prevent more damages from other natural disasters.
The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 was a natural disaster that left the people of Galveston with an unimaginable and terrifying experience,various personal stories, and a massive cleanup job that led to building the sea wall and raising the elevation of the city.

In short, it was a huge and deadly hurricane, that hit Galveston on September 8th 1900. It flooded the city and together with horrible winds destroyed most of the city. Many people have stories about their experiences.A lot of them are very emotional. Then the citizens who had survived had to clean it all up, and then work harder by building a seawall and raising the city for future hurricanes. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 was the biggest natural disaster in American

history.