Galveston Hurricane of 1900
By: Gabi Badillo, Amanda Colon, and Anna Wilcox
Before the Hurricane
With a population of 37,789 it was the fourth largest city in Texas and was the third richest city in the United States in proportion to its population.
Filled with vacationers
Galveston Bay: largest in Texas
Texas leading port city
Piers allowed ships to dock easily
traded cotton, cargo, farm supplies
Major city for banking and shipping
Best natural port between New Orleans and Veracruz
Galveston reported shipment of about 82,000 bales of cotton in per year
Built states first opera house, hospital, post office, golf course, and country club
immigration
- The morning of the storm the US Weather Bureau issued warnings telling people to move to higher grounds, but people ignored the warnings.
Ursuline Academy before the hurricane
During the Hurricane
September 8, 1900
Happened around 10:00 a.m
A Category 4 Hurricane
The tide kept coming inland
The eye of the hurricane kept getting bigger
winds averaged 85 miles per hour and had reached a high of 125 mph
Everyone was trying to get to higher grounds but the water kept rising and rising
Almost the whole city was destroyed
The whole city was underwater
Flooded the city by mid-afternoon- covered the streets with debris and water
More than half the people who had taken shelter had died too
The path of the hurricane
After The Hurricane
6,000- 8,000 people died
3,636 houses totally destroyed
The value of the houses $5,500,000
⅔ of the city was destroyed
The city was underneath 15 ft of water
$30 million in damage ($700 million today)
Deadliest natural Disaster in u.s history
about 70 victims a day were found during the first month
Feburary 10. 1901- the last body was found
Lots of people donating money for reconstruction
$1.25 million in all donations
Built a concrete seawall- 3 miles long
Raised the city level with sand-started December 1903 and was done in quarter-mile-square sections, each about 16 city blocks in size.
The Destruction
There is just debris after debris from the hurricane.
The Destruction
This shows that some houses were still standing, but knocked over.
Sea Wall
This shows the sea wall.