Today is 105th anniversary-Galveston 1900

JBean said:

OMG what a story. Thanks Pepper.

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Pepper said:

Today is 105th anniversary of the 1900 unnamed hurricane that destroyed Galveston, Sept. 8, 1900.

http://www.galvnews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=6bd8aef0607408e0

From staff reports
The Daily News

Published September 8, 2005

GALVESTON — Today marks the 105th anniversary of the unnamed hurricane that destroyed this island city, killed somewhere between 6,000 and 12,000 people and inspired one of history’s most amazing feats of civil engineering.

More chronologically significant anniversaries have come and gone — the first, the 50th and the 100th. But none of those had the grim contemporary context of this anniversary, coming as the nation reels from the first great storm of the new century, the storm that could unseat Galveston from its sad place in the history of calamity.

While we hear of the comparison between Katrina and Camille, Betsey, Andrew and Ivan, practically no one mentions the formerly deadliest storm in US history. This happened before any of us were born, but its toll on human life was immeasureable - at least until now.

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Pepper said:

More on this event in history can be found at:

http://www.1900storm.com/

There is an interesting article here on the rebuilding of the city, and how they raised it several feet. This was quite an accomplishment for 1900.

I first became aware of this disaster when researching my genealogy. I found one branch of the family vacationing in Galveston from Hot Springs, Arkansas, all lost in the storm - 5 children and their parents. One son, away at college at the time, was the only survivor of this family.

I would love to see this PBS documentary, Buzz. Thanks for the information.

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tipper said:

An excellent book - Isaac's Storm by Erik Larsen tells all about the storm, what lead up to it and its aftermath. The same kind of bungling and arrogance went on then as now. Wonderfully researched and it reads like a novel but it isn't.

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Pepper said:

More on this event in history can be found at:

http://www.1900storm.com/

There is an interesting article here on the rebuilding of the city, and how they raised it several feet. This was quite an accomplishment for 1900.

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Buzzm1 said:

Pepper, I was wondering if the libraries might have copies of the PBS documentaries; seems to me they should have as so many of them are so well researched, they provide great history lessons

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