Deadliest Hurricane of 1900 in Texas

The Great Galveston Storm of 1900 destroyed two-thirds of the Texas city and heavily damaged surviving structures. It remains the most deadly natural disaster and worst hurricane in U.S. history.

The U.S. Weather Bureau got the forecast completely wrong.

"Galveston, Texas, an island city located about 50 miles southeast of Houston, was once the nation’s biggest cotton port, a playground for millionaires and a major gateway for arriving immigrants. But on September 8, 1900, a Category 4 hurricane slammed the area with a 15-foot storm surge and winds up to 140 miles per hour. Relatively few residents evacuated, in part because U.S. weather forecasters had downplayed warnings from their Cuban counterparts, and an estimated 8,000 people died. “We got caught flat-footed,” McCaslin said. “It was horrendous. The water literally swept over the island.” In the hurricane’s aftermath, Galveston constructed a seawall and raised its elevation with sand from the Gulf of Mexico. Although 48,000 people currently live there, it has never regained its former glory."

Learn about the 1900 Galveston Hurricane through historical newspapers from our archives. Explore newspaper articles, headlines, images, and other primary sources.

Through
a Night of Horrors, by
Shelly Henley Kelly and Casey Edward Greene, is a collection of
fourteen letters written by survivors immediately following the
Storm, as well as nine memoirs written between 1905-1960 and ten
oral histories recorded after 1966.
..

Mr. & Mrs. Peter BOSS, formerly
of Chicago, IL, were seated at supper with their son when the storm broke. 
Mrs. Boss seized a handkerchief containing $2000 from a bureau, and accompanied
her husband and son to the second story.  When the water reached them,
they leaped into the darkness and landed on a wooden cistern upon which
they road the entire night.  Several times Mrs. Boss lost her hold
and fell back into the water, only to be drawn up again by her son. 
With her feet crushed and bleeding, her clothing torn from her body and
nearly exhausted, the woman was finally taken from her perilous position
several hours after the hurricane started.  Her companions were without
clothing and were delirious.  They were the only persons saved from
the entire block.

Clipping found in The New York Times in New York, New York on Sep 9, 1900. Galveston feared "wiped out by storm"; telegraph lines and bridges to the island are destroyed

"September 8, 1900, began innocently in the seaside town of Galveston, Texas. Even Isaac Cline, resident meteorologist for the U.S. Weather Bureau failed to grasp the true meaning of the strange deep-sea swells and peculiar winds that greeted the city that morning."