Remembering the Victims of 

The Great Storm of 1900

 

On Saturday morning, September 8, 1900, Galveston’s citizens, vacationers, visiting businessmen and seamen woke to a stormy day; winds were blowing from the north, the Gulf waves were crashing to the south and the bay tides began rising. Little did anyone suspect that as the day wore on, they would be in for the fight of their lives by that evening.

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By 2 o’clock in the afternoon, the streets were flooded, the railroad and wagon bridges crossing Galveston Bay that provided retreat to the mainland were now underwater, and the Gulf merged with Galveston Bay, a site never seen before. They were trapped.  Weather forecasting was new, and the local weather observers were ill equipped to forecast that a hurricane, a monstrous one of catastrophic size, was approaching the small island.  About 6:30 p.m. the Great Storm of 1900 made landfall. Over 8,000 people lost their lives during that horrific night. The aftermath of the 1900 Storm was devastating not only in the number of lives lost, but in the number of destroyed homes, businesses, and churches. Survivors found themselves still in the fight for their lives. Water, food, housing, and sanitation were nearly non-existent; survivors struggled to survive, lacking the bare necessities while protecting what little remained from looters. The Great Storm of 1900 is still the greatest natural disaster in America history considering the total lives lost. 

 

The Mourning Tea honors the memories of those men, women, and children who perished and the survivors who continued to suffer unimaginable hardships in the most devastating hurricane of the century.  Thank you for being a part of this exclusive event remembering and honoring the victims, survivors and heroes of The Great Storm of 1900.

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