The Aftermath
N.d. Photograph. The 1900 Storm Galveston Island, Texas. Photograph. City of Galveston 1900 Storm Committee.
Anirudh. "10 Facts on the Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900."
"Galveston counted its dead. The city conducted a census and in October reported a tally of 3,406 confirmed deaths...The Galveston News published its final death roster on October 7, and listed 4,263 names...Informal estimates placed the toll at 8,000, even 10,000...No one knew how many bodies still rested in the sea" (264-265) (1)
Anirudh. "10 Facts on the Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900." Learned Newtonic.
"There was no identification or no prayers said or anything else. They just were put in the ground. And then there was so many of them they took them out to sea, and then they washed back in again, so then they had to be buried. It was a terrible time, it really was." (2)
Death Count Varies
Estimates of the death count vary between 6,000 and 12,000, even though the number cited in reports is 8,000 (20% of the island's initial population). 30,000 were left homeless. It remains the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history and the 3rd deadliest Atlantic hurricane after the Great Hurricane of 1780 and 1998's Hurricane Mitch. It killed more people than all the tropical cyclones that have hit the United States since. (3)
Stice, Joel. "Haunting Photos of the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, the Deadliest Disaster in American History."
"We drove hundreds of negroes at the bayonet point to assist in the work of burning and loading the dead on barges for sea burial. And on one occasion, by orders of the mayor, we marched to the foot of Tremont Street, taking every able-bodied man, white or black, met with and forced them at bayonet point to assist in the awful work. These poor fellows were only kept up on whiskey, which was given to them by the gobletful." (4)