From Galveston.com
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Commissioned by the Galveston Commission for the Arts and installed in 2000, David W. Moore's bronze sculpture is a monument to the victims and survivors of the 1900 Storm, which killed in excess of 6,000 Galvestonians.
David Moore passed away at the age of 80 in 2001. He left his mark on the island he loved with beautiful sculptures made from wood, terra cotta, and various metals.
This Day In History - The Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900
by Stateology.com Staff September 08, 2016
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The Great Galveston Hurricane was a Category 4 storm, with winds of up to 145 mph per hour, which made landfall on September 8, 1900, in Galveston, Texas in the United States, leaving about 8,000 dead. It was the deadliest hurricane in US history.
In the years before the great storm, Galveston had grown from a small settlement on the Texas coast into one of the wealthiest cities in the country.
Owing to contradictory forecasts, the people of Galveston felt no alarm until the official hurricane warning of September 7. Next morning a storm surge of 15 feet washed over the long, flat island-city which was only 8 feet above sea level, knocking buildings off their foundations and destroying over 3,600 homes.
Its natural deepwater channel made Galveston the most important seaport in Texas. Trains carried cargo to and from the port, and ships traveled across the seas.
More than 70 percent of the country's cotton crop at the time passed through the port of Galveston, and some 1,000 ships called on the port annually.
The wealthy from throughout the state and country visited Galveston to bathe in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
The shallow waters made it easy for bathers to wade safely several yards offshore and enjoy what was considered to be a therapeutic bathing in the Gulf. At the time, the entire stretch of the beach was level with the surf. The Beach Hotel, which burned before the 1900 Storm, was a vacation destination.
The city was home to about 37,000 people. Galveston, with its wealth and prosperity, was home to numerous firsts for the state, such as first electricity and first telephones.
But the same characteristics that made the city attractive to its residents and guests left it vulnerable to disaster.
"That same proximity to the sea that made Galveston prosper changed Galveston forever," said Macdonald, a descendent of a 1900 Storm survivor and author of a driving tour about the history of the storm.
The disaster ended the Golden Era of Galveston, as the hurricane alarmed potential investors, who turned to Houston instead. The whole island of Galveston was presently raised by 17 feet and a 10 square mile seawall erected.
It had been suggested before the 1900 hurricane that a seawall be built to protect the city from high tides and storm surges, but because the city had not been seriously hurt by hurricanes before 1900, the residents developed a sense of security.
Even as the waters began to rise on the morning of Sept. 8, 1900, residents continued about their daily business. Children played in the flood waters, which began rising as early as dawn.
When Cline, then chief meteorologist of the U.S. Weather Service station in Galveston, began his observations about 5 a.m., he noticed gulf water creeping over the low ends of the island.
From atop the National Weather Service bureau, which was at 23rd and Market streets, Cline watched storm swells rise, the barometer drop and the winds grow stronger.
According to his memoirs, he knew at that moment of impending danger. He rode up and down the beach on his horse urging visitors to go home and residents within three blocks of the beach to move to higher ground.
In 1900, higher ground was a relative term. The highest house in the city was at an elevation between 8 and 9 feet.
But even Cline's warning would prove fruitless as the night approached. By the peak of the storm, no part of the island remained dry.
"In reality, there was no island, just the ocean with houses standing out of the waves which rolled between them," Cline wrote in his memoirs "Storms, Flood and Sunshine”.
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.
Commissioned by the Galveston Commission for the Arts and installed in 2000, David W. Moore's bronze sculpture is a monument to the victims and survivors of the 1900 Storm, which killed in excess of 6,000 Galvestonians.
"The story of Galveston's tragedy can never be written as it is. Since the cataclysm of Saturday night a force of faithful men have been struggling to convey to humanity from time to time some of the particulars of the tragedy.
They have told much, but it was impossible for them to tell all, and the world, at best, can never know all, for the thousands of tragedies written by the storm must forever remain mysteries until eternity shall reveal all.
Perhaps it were best that it should be so, for the horror and anguish of those fatal and fateful hours were mercifully lost in the screaming tempest and buried forever beneath the raging billows.
Only God knows, and for the rest let it remain forever in the boundlessness of His omniscience.
But in the realm of infinity, the weak and staggered senses of mankind may gather fragments of the disaster, and may strive with inevitable incompleteness to convey the merest impression of the saddest story which ever engaged the efforts of a reporter."
- As published Sept. 13, 1900, in The Galveston Daily News
Facts about the 1900 Storm:
8.7 feet: The highest elevation on Galveston Island in 1900.
15.7 feet: The height of the storm surge.
28.55 inches: Barometric pressure recorded in Galveston, 30 miles from where the eye of the storm is best estimated. At the time, this was the lowest barometric pressure ever recorded.
6,000 to 8,000: Number of people estimated to have died during the storm.
37,000 people: Population of Galveston in 1900.
3,600: Number of buildings destroyed by the storm.
130 to 140 miles per hour: Speed meteorologists estimate the winds reached during the storm.
$20 million: Estimated damage costs related to the storm. In today's dollars, that would be more than $700 million.