AUSTIN, Texas — Galveston was known as the grandest city in Texas at the dawn of the 20th century.
But after the arrival of the hurricane on Sept. 8, 1900, the city would struggle to ever regain its former status.
The storm was so devastating that it’s been estimated that it killed nearly a fourth of the city’s population. As many as 8,000 dead – so many that their bodies were loaded on barges and dumped at sea, only to have the cadavers wash ashore later.
Survivors lit funeral pyres to dispose of the unfortunate, most of whom had drowned when a 15-foot tide swept across a city that sits only five feet above sea level.
The famed inventor Thomas Edison sent a cameraman, who arrived several days after the storm had struck. This remarkable record of the disaster is believed to be the first-ever news film, as he captured images of an orphanage where 90 children and 10 nuns died while taking refuge in wooden structures nearby.
Other footage showed the daily search for bodies beneath the rubble on Broadway Street. One scene depicts workers attempting to move a schooner that had been washed ashore back into the water. There are shots of the Tremont Hotel, on the highest point on the island, where thousands rode out the storm and survived.
At the time of hurricane, the United States Weather Bureau had been in operation for 10 years, but even after learning the hurricane has passed to the north of Cuba on a likely trajectory into the Gulf of Mexico, the bureau erroneously predicted that it would take a sharp turn north and hit Florida. No warnings were given to the people of Galveston.
It’s impossible to visit Galveston today and not see signs of the disaster's impact, including a 17-foot seawall that was built after the great storm.
Memorializing the victims sits a simple sculpture, erected along the beach that depicts a mother protecting a child while the father reaches skyward: A memorial to the memory of the thousands who lost their lives 123 years ago this week.