The Great Galveston Disaster Prompt Essay* Based on Book By: Paul Lester (1900)

The Great Galveston Disaster Prompt Essay* Based on book by: Paul Lester (1900) The Great Galveston Disaster Prompt Essay* Based on book by: Paul Lester (1900) This prompt writing exercise is based on events and excerpts from THE GREAT GALVESTON DISASTER. Shortly after the Galveston Hurricane of September 8th, 1900, devastated the city of Galveston, Texas, a book featuring numerous accounts of Galvestonians appeared. This exercise takes 23 survivor stories appearing in the text for a writing assignment. Each student is assigned a survivor’s story and requested to rewrite the account taking on the persona of the survivor. The one-page essay is to be read or shared verbally as a first person talk to the class. Included in the essay should be added details about the storm from a general article about Galveston and the storm’s impact on local citizens. Below are listed the individual survivor’s testimonies. Female students are assigned women’s accounts and males the men’s stories. There is an excellent video produced by the HISTORY CHANNEL based on a 1999 non-fiction novel, ISAAC’S STORM, which the class may view over the Internet at the address listed below. Though the video is approximately 90 minutes long, too long for a normal class period, it may be viewed beginning 47 minutes into the story. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5738477727172072633# (The video may also be found by entering the search words “Isaac’s Hurricane Storm” in the Google search field then clicking on the “video” search option among those listed on the Google search page. Remember to click on the YouTube player’s full screen “box” icon on the player progress bar bordering the bottom of the screen image. To return to the Google page, click a second time on the box icon.) Prior to composing the “eye-witness survivor’s prompt”, read the following summary of the Galveston Hurricane of 1900. Use content of the summary and the video, if viewed, in the first-person testimonial essay prompt. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 From Wikipedia The Hurricane of 1900 made landfall on the city of Galveston, Texas, on September 8, 1900. It had estimated winds of 135 miles per hour (217 km/h) at landfall, making it a Category 4 storm on the Saffir- Simpson Hurricane Scale. The hurricane caused great loss of life with the estimated death toll between 6,000 and 12,000 individuals; the number most cited in official reports is 8,000, giving the storm the third-highest number of casualties of any Atlantic hurricane, after the Great Hurricane of 1780 and 1998’s Hurricane Mitch. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 is to date the deadliest natural disaster ever to strike the United States. By contrast, the second-deadliest storm to strike the United States, the 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane, caused approximately more than 6,000 deaths, and the deadliest storm of recent times, Hurricane Katrina, claimed the lives of approximately 1,800 people. The hurricane occurred before the practice of assigning official code names to tropical storms was instituted, and thus it is commonly referred to under a variety of descriptive names. Typical names for the storm include the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, the Great Galveston Hurricane, and, especially in older documents, the Galveston Flood. It is often referred to by Galveston locals as The Great Storm or The 1900 Storm. Details of the storm were not widespread; damage to telegraph lines limited communication. The Weather Bureau’s central office in Washington, D.C. ordered storm warnings raised from Pensacola, Florida to Galveston. By the afternoon of the 7th, large swells from the southeast were observed on the Gulf, and clouds at all altitudes began moving in from the northeast. Both of these observations are consistent with a hurricane approaching from the east. The Galveston Weather Bureau office raised its double square flags; a hurricane warning was in effect. The ship Louisiana encountered the hurricane at 1 p.m. that day after departing New Orleans. Captain Halsey estimated wind speeds of 100 mph (160 km/h). These winds correspond to a Category 2 hurricane in the modern-day Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. By early afternoon, a steady northeastern wind had picked up. By 5 p.m., the Bureau office was recording sustained hurricane-force winds. That night, the wind direction shifted to the east, and then to the southeast as the hurricane’s eye began to pass over the island. By 11 p.m., the wind was southerly and diminishing. On Sunday morning, clear skies and a 20 mph (30 km/h) breeze off the Gulf of Mexico greeted the Galveston survivors.[3] The storm continued on, and later tracked into Oklahoma. From there, it continued over the Great Lakes while still sustaining winds of almost 40 mph (as recorded over Milwaukee, Wisconsin) and passed north of Halifax, Nova Scotia on September 12, 1900 From there it traveled into the North Atlantic where it disappeared from observations, after decimating the schooner fleet fishing off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. At the end of the 19th century, the city of Galveston, Texas was a booming town with a population of 42,000 residents. Its position on the natural harbor of Galveston Bay along the Gulf of Mexico made it the center of trade and the biggest city in the state of Texas. With this prosperity came a sense of complacency. As severe as the damage to the city’s buildings was, the human toll was even greater. Because of the destruction of the bridges to the mainland and the telegraph lines, no word of the city’s destruction was able to reach the mainland. At 11 a.m. on September 9, one of the few ships at the Galveston wharfs to survive the storm, the Pherabe, arrived in Texas City on the western side of Galveston Bay. It carried six messengers from the city. When they reached the telegraph office in Houston at 3 a.m. on September 10, a short message was sent to Texas Governor Joseph D. Sayers and U.S. President William McKinley: “I have been deputized by the mayor and Citizen’s Committee of Galveston to inform you that the city of Galveston is in ruins.” The messengers reported an estimated five hundred dead; this was considered to be an exaggeration at the time. The citizens of Houston knew a powerful storm had blown through and had made ready to provide assistance. Workers set out by rail and ship for the island almost immediately. Rescuers arrived to find the city completely destroyed. It is believed 8,000 people—20% of the island’s population—had lost their lives. Estimates range from 6,000 to 12,000. Most had drowned or been crushed as the waves pounded the debris that had been their homes hours earlier. Many survived the storm itself but died after several days trapped under the wreckage of the city, with rescuers unable to reach them. The rescuers could hear the screams of the survivors as they walked on the debris trying to rescue those they could. A further 30,000 were left homeless. The bodies were so numerous that burying them all was not possible. The dead were initially dumped at sea; the gulf currents washed the bodies back onto the beach so a new solution was needed. Funeral pyres were set up wherever the dead were found and burned for weeks after the storm. Authorities passed out free whiskey to work crews that were having to throw the bodies of their wives and children on the burn piles. More people were killed in this single storm than the total of those killed in all the tropical cyclones that have struck the United States since. This count is greater than 300 cyclones, as of 2006. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 remains the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history. *From the Developmental Educators’ Handbook, Betty and Jerry Woodfill, Editors/Authors Account 1. - Mr. James Irwin (Pg. 57) Account 2. - Mrs. Bergman (Pg. 96) Account 3. - Alexander and Stanley Spencer - Two Boys (Pg. 107) The boys told a remarkable story of their experience during the storm. “Storm warnings were sent out on Friday but nobody paid much attention to them. Only a little blow was expected, ” said Alexander. But then came the storm, and they were asked, “Were to frightened much?” They said, “All night long the storm got worse, and we could hear calls for help. To everyone who came to our home, we gave shelter. Once someone knocked on our door; when we opened it a woman fell headlong across the doorstep. She had fainted from exhaustion.” “A house was washed against ours. In it the wreckers found eight bodies. Our house rocked dreadfully. It and the two house on either side are old, and no one thought they would survive, but they did, the only ones to survive in that part of the city.” “Our pet monkey drowned, but we saved the dogs, five big dogs and three puppies. All we could do was thank God that He had given us a place of shelter which we could share with those less fortunate. Account 4. – Experience of a Young Girl (Pg. 172) Account 5. – George MacLaine of St. Louis (Pg. 236) Account 6. – Honorable Morris Sheppard in Union Depot (Pg. 263) Account 7. – Mrs. Boss (Pg. 268)\ Account 8. – Miss Pixley’s Story (Pg. 273) Account 9. – Rev. L.P. Davis (Pg. 293) Account 10. – Rev. Palmer’s Story (Pg. 328) Account 11. – Second Version Rev.

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