Through a Night of Horrors: Voices from the 1900 Galveston Storm

It had no name and gave no warning, but crept stealthily into the Gulf and then roared ashore, killing six thousand people. Nearly one hundred years after its landfall, the hurricane that struck Galveston Island on September 8, 1900 remains the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. In this work witnesses to this deadly disaster describe, in many never-before-published accounts, their encounters with this monstrous storm. Casey Edward Greene and Shelly Henley Kelly’s work with these primary sources represents several years of labor in culling the Rosenberg Library in Galveston’s unparalleled collection on the 1900 storm. Some of the survivor accounts included were recorded in the days and months immediately following the disaster; others were put down after many years had passed. Oral history recordings made in the 1960s and 1970s provided further accounts given by survivors as they approached the end of their lives. More than seventy dramatic photographs underscore the catastrophe.

CASEY EDWARD GREENE is head of special collections at the Rosenberg Library in GalvestonSHELLY HENLEY KELLY is assistant archivist at the Rosenberg Library in Galveston.