When they awoke on the morning of September 8, 1900, the 38,000 residents of Galveston, Texas were unaware that this day would be their city's last. They had no idea that before the day was done, 8,000 of their fellow citizens would perish with the city. The culprit was a hurricane. The storm swept in off the Gulf of Mexico packing winds up to 135 mph - a category 4 storm in modern terminology. The storm propelled a fifteen-foot surge of water before it; easily swamping the 8.7-foot-high island that Galveston called home. Together, the wind and the water destroyed everything in their path and created the worst natural disaster in America's history.
After the Storm There was little warning and no defense. In the early morning, high tides flooded some of the inland streets. Yet, this was not unusual in a city that barely rose above sea level. Heavy swells began to appear, but the mostly blue sky prompted a confidence that nothing out of the ordinary was about to occur. Most residents reasoned that even if a storm was on its way, they had weathered storms before. As a relative of one victim later recalled: "Mama didn't want to leave. She'd been through it before and wasn't worried. It had never been that bad." However, Galveston had never seen a storm like this one.
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