Isaac's Storm (27 page)

John
Blagden,
the
observer
assigned
to
Galveston
on
temporary
duty,
reported
spending
much
of
Saturday
answering
telephone
calls
from
worried
civilians,
but
it
is
by
no
means
clear
that
he
conveyed
to
these
callers
any
great
sense
of
danger.
He
conceded,
later,
"The
storm
was
more
severe
than
we
expected."

About
midmorning,
Isaac
himself
walked
to
the
Strand
and
there
told
several
wholesale
merchants
that
he
expected
minor
flooding.
He
advised
them
to
raise
their
goods
three
feet
off
the
ground.

Many
residents
said
the
storm
came
utterly
without
warning.
None
had
the
slightest
inkling
that
it
might
be
a
hurricane.
One
resident,
Sarah
Davis
Hawley,
noted
that
even
as
late
as
Saturday
afternoon,
despite
the
wind
and
unusually
dark
skies,
"we
weren't
at
all
apprehensive."
Another
survivor,
R.
Wilbur
Goodman,
spent
Saturday
morning
swimming
and
chatting
with
friends
at
the
YMCA,
and
went
home
on
what
proved
to
be
the
last
trolley
of
the
day.
The
car
was
crowded,
but
"there
was
no
talk
of
the
storm."

Pardy
this
was
the
fault
of
the
Weather
Bureau
—
its
forecasters
had
failed
to
identify
the
storm
as
a
hurricane
and
to
recognize
that
it
was
not
following
the
rules.
The
bureau's
West
Indies
service
was
so
busy
trying
to
downplay
the
danger
and
show
up
the
Cubans
that
it
apparently
missed
whatever
signs
the
Cubans
saw
that
convinced
them
the
storm
had
suddenly
become
more
violent.
And
Willis
Moore's
obsession
with
control
and
public
image
guaranteed
that
no
one
in
the
Galveston
office
would
even
whisper
the
word
hurricane
without
a
formal
authorization
from
Moore
himself.

It
was
also
the
fault,
however,
of
the
city's
newspapers
and
the
editorial
customs
of
the
time.
Certainly
anyone
who
read
that
morning's
Galveston
News
could
be
forgiven
for
not
taking
the
storm
too
seriously.

At
the
turn
of
the
century,
newspaper
editors
expected
readers
to
read
everything
and
packed
their
pages
tight
with
items
that
ranged
in
length
from
a
single
sentence
to
several
full
columns.
They
sprinkled
news
throughout
each
day's
edition
with
what
late-twentieth-century
readers
would
consider
mindless
abandon.
Late-breaking
stories
got
shoe-horned
into
whatever
space
happened
to
be
available,
because
composers
had
neither
the
time
nor
the
will
to
break
apart
existing
plates
of
type.
On
Sunday,
September
2,
for
example,
a
reporter
told
in
extraordinary
detail
the
story
of
a
well-dressed
young
man
beheaded
by
a
switch
locomotive
in
a
freak
accident
on
Galveston's
wharf
—
how
the
head
had
disappeared,
and
no
one
knew
the
man's
identity.
The
reporter
even
gave
readers
the
color
of
the
dead
man's
underwear.
Later
that
night,
at
about
3:00
A.M.,
police
found
the
man's
head
(it
had
been
deposited
atop
an
axle
housing,
hat
still
in
place)
and
soon
afterward
identified
the
victim
as
an
engineer
off
the
steamship
Michigan
who
somehow
had
stumbled
in
front
of
the
locomotive.
The
editors
ran
both
stories,
four
pages
apart.

In
fact,
Saturday's
edition
of
the
News
was
a
gold
mine
of
weather
information,
in
the
sense
that
fragments
of
the
story
were
lodged
throughout
the
paper
like
nuggets
on
an
abandoned
claim.
Nearly
everyone
in
Galveston
read
the
News
that
morning.
They
found
the
first
weather
story
on
page
2
—
a
report
about
a
storm
that
had
struck
the
Florida
coast-
The
second
item
was
only
one
sentence
long
and
appeared
on
page
3,
describing
how
the
same
storm
was
"raging"
along
the
Louisiana
and
Mississippi
coasts
as
of
12:45
A.M.
Saturday,
the
time
at
which
the
dispatch
was
filed.

On
another
page,
the
newspaper
published
the
routine
daily
weather
forecast
out
of
Washington:

"For
western
Texas,
New
Mexico,
Oklahoma
and
Indian
territory:
Local
rains
Saturday
and
Sunday;
variable
winds.

"For
eastern
Texas:
Rain
Saturday,
with
high
northerly
winds;
Sunday
rain,
followed
by
clearing."

The
most
substantial
story
appeared
on
page
10
and
reported
that
the
Weather
Bureau
now
believed
the
tropical
storm
in
the
Gulf
"instead
of
moving
north,
had
changed
its
course,"
and
was
moving
toward
the
northwest.
"The
early
indications
were
that
the
storm
would
probably
strike
land
somewhere
east
of
Texas,
and
make
its
way
across
land
westwardly."
The
report
downplayed
the
storm.
"The
weather
bureau
officials
did
not
anticipate
any
dangerous
disturbance,
although
they
were
not
in
a
position
to
judge
just
what
degree
the
storm
may
reach
or
develop
when
it
strikes
Texas."

Early
Saturday
morning,
apparently
just
before
deadline,
someone
at
the
paper
added
a
paragraph
to
this
story,
seeking
to
pack
the
paper
with
the
freshest
news
possible.
"At
midnight
the
moon
was
shining
brightly
and
the
sky
was
not
as
threatening
as
earlier
in
the
night.
The
weather
bureau
had
no
late
advices
as
to
the
storm's
movements
and
it
may
be
that
the
tropical
disturbance
has
changed
its
course
or
spent
its
force
before
reaching
Texas."

There
was
other
news,
of
course.
The
Galveston
News,
like
most
papers
of
the
day,
gave
extensive
coverage
to
foreign
events.
On
Saturday,
the
Boxer
Rebellion
in
China
dominated
the
front
page.
But
the
News
also
covered
the
most
insignificant
stories.
It
reported
the
newest
arrivals
at
the
Hotel
Grand
and
the
Tremont
Hotel,
and
the
general
comings
and
goings
of
Galveston's
citizens.
Saturday's
paper
noted,
for
example,
that
a
boy
named
Louis
Becker
had
left
town
on
Friday
to
attend
school
in
Carthage,
Missouri.
The
Reverend
W.
N.
Scott
of
the
First
Presbyterian
Church
returned
on
Friday
from
a
summer
away
in
cooler
Virginia.
And
W.
L.
Norwood
departed
Friday
night
for
Buffalo
to
attend
the
National
Association
of
Undertakers
and
Embalmers
convention
set
to
begin
on
September
11.
He
took
his
wife
and
his
young
daughter
along.

In
just
a
few
hours,
these
reports
of
Friday's
arrivals
and
departures
would
take
on
an
entirely
different
cast,
and
be
seen
instead
as
stories
of
miraculous
escape
and
tragic
bad
timing.

If
there
were
a
Pulitzer
for
bleak
irony,
however,
it
would
go
to
the
News
for
its
Saturday-morning
report
on
one
of
the
most
important
local
stories
of
the
year
—
the
Galveston
count
of
the
1900
U.S.
census,
which
the
newspaper
had
first
announced
on
Friday.
The
news
was
excellent:
Over
the
last
decade
of
the
nineteenth
century,
the
city's
population
had
increased
by
29.93
percent,
the
highest
growth
rate
of
any
southern
city
counted
so
far.
"Galveston
has
cause
to
feel
proud
in
having
grown
30
percent
in
ten
years,"
the
News
reported.
"That
is
a
good
record
to
start
out
with
on
the
new
decade,
when
the
prospects
are
bright
even
to
surpass
it."

AT
THE
COMPETING
Galveston
Tribune,
editor
Clarence
Ousley
spent
Saturday
morning
writing
his
editorials
for
the
Sunday
edition.
He
looked
out
the
window
at
the
harsh
sky.
Patches
of
blue
still
showed,
but
mostly
he
saw
clouds
as
black
and
low
as
any
he
had
ever
seen.
The
storm
seemed
a
good
subject
for
comment.
Off
and
on
that
morning
he
had
called
home
for
reports
from
his
family
on
the
condition
of
the
surf,
which
his
wife
and
children
could
watch
from
the
windows
of
the
second
floor.
It
was
very
exciting
—
storms
always
were
—
but
he
did
not
think
this
one
would
be
terribly
different
from
any
other.

"There
have
been
high
waters
before,
when
the
effect
was
mainly
discomfort
and
the
destruction
of
fences,"
he
typed.
No
flood
could
ever
exceed
the
high-water
marks
already
noted
on
landmarks
around
town,
he
argued.
"Physical
geographers"
—
mainly
Commodore
Matthew
Fontaine
Maury
—
"argue
plausibly,
with
the
support
of
experience,
that
the
high-water
records
have
been
the
maximum
of
possibility
because
the
beach
at
Galveston
slopes
so
gently
to
the
ocean
depths
that
destructive
waves
will
be
broken
and
their
force
dissipated
before
reaching
the

shore."

He
struck
a
reassuring
note:
"An
inundation
might
be
wasteful
and
damaging,
to
be
sure,
but
there
is
no
possibility
of
serious
loss
of
life."

The
Tribune
never
published
the
editorial.
The
storm
flooded
the
presses.
Many
decades
later,
Ousley's
daughter
Angie
would
describe
the
flooding
as
an
event
"which
did
much
to
preserve
my
father's
reputation
for
editorial
profundity.

CHILDREN
FOUND
THE
storm
nothing
but
delightful.
Henry
C.
Cortes
of
Houston
was
eight
years
old
when
he
came
to
Galveston
on
Saturday,
September
8.
Early
that
morning
his
father
made
the
impulsive
decision
to
take
the
family
to
visit
Grandmother
Cortes
on
her
birthday.
Henry
dressed
for
the
day
in
high-laced
black
boots,
black
cotton
stockings
with
elastic
black
garters,
white
starched
linen
pants
that
ended
just
below
the
knees,
a
sailor-style
blouse,
and
a
stiff
hat
known
as
a
straw
katy.
The
trip
took
ninety
minutes.
Immediately
after
Henry
and
his
family
left
the
station,
they
got
slapped
by
a
powerful
gust
of
wind
that
lifted
Henry's
hat
offhis
head.
It
disappeared
forever.
When
he
reached
his
grandmother's
house
around
lunchtime
he
found
the
yard
under
two
and
a
half
feet
of
water.
"Even
so,"
he
said,
"the
neighboring
kids
were
out
playing
in
washtubs
or
homemade
rafts."